Mother, Dear

 

For God’s sake, he was an auto mechanic and now he’s a diving instructor? He’s gone from an automotive workshop to working retail for a shop specializing in diving equipment? What kind of a working future is that?

Look, Mom, that’s his choice. He’s always been interested in scuba diving, he’s got a wet suit, he joined a club years ago that meets and dives in old quarries. It’s his focus.

His focus? To make an outstanding contribution to society and earn a respectable livelihood through scuba diving instruction?

What’s the matter with you! It’s his life, his choice, and I’m all right with it.

Are you? Are you really? It’s all right for you to be the sole bread winner, what does he contribute?

What he can, Mom. He doesn’t make much of a salary.

Tell me, tell me a little more about that. I remember when he moved in you said on his mechanic’s salary he could only give you $200 monthly toward the food bill. That wouldn’t even cover a portion of what the man eats.

None of your business.

You made it my business. You told me about it.

Only because you said everyone needs to be able to vent. I was just thinking out loud. You know I do that, you know I say things to you that sound bad, but I get over them.

Why should you? Why should you ‘get over them’?

Because that’s my life, that’s why. If it bothers you all that much I won’t say anything to you anymore. I’d rather that than you come at me like this.

I’ve got eyes, haven’t I? I can see what’s happening, even if you don’t tell me.

Don’t come over so much, who asks you to?

I happen to want to see my grandchild.

Look Mom, you’ve lived your life the way you saw fit, and I’m just doing the same thing, for myself.

Not doing an awfully good job of it, sorry to say.

That’s your opinion, just your own, and I haven’t asked for it. Besides which, you haven’t done so well for yourself in that same department, have you?

There’s a kick in the face, thanks very much. I didn’t leave your father, he left me.

Don’t I know it. Because, as you well know, you’re too controlling, too manipulative, and now that he’s out of your life you try to control mine.

Come on, that’s hardly fair. I have your best interests at heart. It breaks me up to see you working so hard. You’ve got a kid to take care of, a home, and a full-time job, and all those animals you keep rescuing, it’s crazy. On top of it, you’ve taken in another stray.

He’s not a stray, Mom. He was living with his parents. And working. And contributing to them.

Right. At 47 he was living with his parents. Right off the bat, there’s a signal that something isn’t right.

Have it your way. You always do.

Do I? Really! And how’s that?

Has anyone ever been able to counter anything you’ve ever said, without being pounced on? It’s your way and there is no other.

Your father’s got through to you. That’s him, talking through you. That was him back there when you said I was controlling and manipulative.

Well, weren’t you? Aren’t you right now, barging into my life, uninvited, criticizing me and the man I happen to be living with? You made it impossible for Dad to continue living with you, so you’re alone. I have no intention of living alone.

Why not? There’s a whole lot less stress on the nervous system. A lot of satisfaction in knowing you can do all the stupid little things you depend on a man to do. Marriage - or, in your case, ‘partnership’ is a farce, in any event. You don’t need a man around, you’ve just convinced yourself you do.

My mom, the man-hating tigress, grade A dyke. Say meowww!

That’s perfectly unnecessary, and does you no credit. I’m no lesbian, never have been oriented that way, and you know it.

Maybe I do, but sometimes it seems you’re the gay crowd’s best friend.

To each their own, they don’t bother me, I don’t bother them.

Right. That’s all right. But guess what, Mom, I want a relationship with a man. I need to feel cared for, appreciated, valued. For my womanhood, if you want to put it that way. But for me, it’s the total intimacy with a man, it adds immeasurable value to my life. You wouldn’t know anything about that, I’m sure.

You think? You think you know it all, don’t you?

Well, I do know more than you think I do. I do know that Aunt Dora sided with Dad, said she couldn’t believe how long he’d held onto that marriage, how destructive your attitude was.

She said that? Why am I not surprised. She always had this soft spot for your father, thought he walked on water.

Mom, I know why she thought that way. She loved him, she thought she would be the one he would want to marry. Instead you came along, and he couldn't resist your invitations; drifted over to you. She’s never forgiven you.

Don’t I know it. But then your aunt always was a loser. Think you’d rather have had her as a mother than me? Your Aunt Dora? That sad-sack misery of a woman?

Now you’re abusing her. Is there anyone, anyone at all beyond your criticism?

Sure, I just have to think about it.

Think about it, Mom, then let me know. Dad hasn’t found any fault with Steve, he thinks he’s all right.

Figures. Besides, he has no idea, none whatever about how you’re living, what you’re putting up with. I do. And it bugs the hell out of me.

That’s my business, Mom, not yours! I’m a big girl, capable of making my own decisions about my life.

What about Morgan, what about your child? She resents Steve’s presence. Did you even ask if she was all right with his moving in? No, didn’t think so. Don’t you think that kind of thing is important for her welfare, that she be comfortable with decisions you make that impact on her life?

She’s just a kid. What does she know? This is my life, Mom, and I’ll live it as I see fit. And as things stand, I’m perfectly happy, living with Steve.

The auto mechanic or the scuba-diving instructor?

Both! What’s the point of this. Leave off, will you? Don’t you have anything better to do?

Well, I won’t leave off. He’s a mechanic, but he’s absolutely useless to you even in that department. You’re the one who told me you had to shovel that huge driveway of yours by hand because there’s something wrong with the snow-thrower, and he wasn’t around the night of the storm to help, because he had to attend a scuba-diving seminar. What kind of priorities has the man got? You haven’t the physical stamina to do things like that, not with everything else you’ve got to do. Exactly the same in the summer when you’re the one mowing the lawns, never him. What the hell does he ever do?

He does what he can. I don’t demand anything of him. It is my house, after all. I’m the one responsible for its operation.

Give me a bloody break! You can’t rely on this guy for anything. He lives here, makes himself completely comfortable, eats your food, warms your bed, and he has no responsibilities. That’s equality? That’s opportunism, clear and simple. He’s using you.

Think so? That’s your impression and I won’t dignify your comments with a response. That’s enough. I refuse to continue this useless, dispiriting conversation. You’re an irreversible cynic, and I’m not.

You will be, dear. You’ve a few more years to go, and you’ll get there. 

 

 

Resigned, Not Stupid

She was stolid, and solid. Immovable, imperturbable. Nothing like when they were young. Younger; they were not yet all that old. Nothing like the slow-moving Elderberries next door, with his wrinkled, pinched face, her grim grandmotherly eyes condemning everything. Reminded him of his own mother.

The Elderberries, together it seemed since time immemorial, yet he couldn’t recall either of them directing a kind word one at the other, or even engaging in the most basic conversation. They communicated through grunts and otherwise seemed to just ignore one another, moving around each other, as though they hardly knew who they were.

His mother; dead now, so it’s not true that the good die young; sometimes the miserable ones do, too. She was adept like no one else he could imagine, at throwing things at him and Hughie. Likely blaming them in some way that their father had left her, gone out on his own rather than continue to live with a shrill fishwife.

Hughie’s done all right for himself, a good cartage business, making money even in this tight-market economy. Like their father, Hughie had that genial kind of personality that drew people to him. He made lots of good contacts at city Hall, knew who to support in an election. Those politicians, they know who put them there; payback guaranteed.

Hadn’t done too badly himself, a born salesman; again like their father. Some people even considered him suave, self-assured, a good talker. You do what it takes. For him it was an act. Hughie was the real thing.

He heard kitchen sounds as he trod quietly downstairs. Walked the short hallway to the kitchen entrance, watched Edith, her heavy, resigned back at the stove, stirring a pot. He had to give her that. She’d developed into a fine cook. Wasn’t always that, not when they were younger.

Her mother had groomed her precious prom queen to be precociously aware of the thrills inherent in attracting the attention of males; they flocked around her as though around a honey pot. She could have had her pick of any of the school jocks, and she chose him. It amazed him then, puzzles him still.

She had no practical knowledge from watching her mother do housewifely things. Little surprising, since her mother never indulged in the pedestrian. Taught her daughter to preen. Well, it worked, caught him. He was the lucky one, the envy of all those other guys who kept asking whether she’d put out yet. He’d kept them guessing until.

He wished her well, just wasn’t prepared to waste any more of his life with her.

“You can’t” Hughie flatly denied.
“I can, I intend to, and I will.”
“She’s given you 25 years of her life.”
“Her life? You have any idea what those 25 years cost me?”
“You’ve had kids together, what about them?”

You just had to laugh. Hughie, for all his experience in handling matters of business, fending off competitors, manipulating the city councillors who had learned to depend on him, had this old-fashioned mindset when it came to the ‘sacred vows’ of the marriage bond. It was all right for him, his wife was intelligent, she was capable, she maintained her appearance, even though she’d had four kids, not two, like Edith. Who just let everything go, desperately trying to cope with two well-behaved kids who would have been a breeze for anyone else to nurture and raise.

“Well, what about the kids? They’re both older now than I was when I was trapped into marriage.”

Hughie laughed, but there was no amusement in his voice. This really bothered him, who would have thought? “You were trapped into marriage? Hey, doesn’t it take two to make that exotic dance? You trapped her into pregnancy, how do you like that interpretation?”

“Well, guess what? She’ll survive the trauma of my leaving. She gets nothing out of my being around, as it happens. We have nothing to discuss, we’ve nothing in common any longer, now the kids are at university. Her financial status won’t change. She’s well looked after.”

“It will humiliate her. You can’t treat her like that!”

“When’s the last time you had a stimulating conversation with my wife, Hughie? Looking at her, the way she appears, would you, in my place, feel stimulated to have sex?”

Hughie flushed, would you believe it, he blushed. As though he were being accused of letching after Edith, and was caught at it. On the other hand, if he ever viewed her as a possible lay, he’d have something to blush about, he mused. Obviously, it was a mistake to ventilate like this, thinking to prepare Hughie for what he’d planned, get some feedback, see how he felt, how he’d think of his plans. Now he knew. A sage he is not; strait-laced he most certainly is. You’d think, he prodded himself, that I’d know my own brother better than that.

“Sex, is it?” Hughie shot back at him. “Got someone lined up?”

“Not your business, not anyone’s business. Anyway, sex would hardly be the primary motivation for leaving Edith. There’s a whole lot more to it than that. Companionship, for one, a huge component. The potential for the occasional lucid remark about something meaningful. Pride in someone who means something to you. There’s none of that with her.

I’ve already given up too much of my life because I didn’t have the guts to defy Mother, and then events just took over. Hughie, I helped raise those kids of ours. I sacrificed enough time to do that. You have no idea, no idea at all, what it’s like to be around her. Even the kids are glad to be away from her morose, miserable presence.”

“You can take credit for a whole lot of her misery, you know that.”

“Look, I’m sorry, really could kick myself for mentioning this to you. I wanted to prepare you, that’s all. Seems I needn’t have bothered.”

“What you do is your own affair”, Hughie responded stiffly. He could hardly recognize him. “Anything I have to say just washes off your back; you’ve got an answer for everything. I’d just like to remind you that your relationship with your wife resulted from your unwillingness to reach her, just as much as her incapacity to engage you. Takes two to make a success, two to reach failure. You could’ve tried harder.”

“Damn, Hughie! What the hell’s the matter with you? Haven’t you ever looked at another woman, spoken to someone whose grasp on life’s issues earned your respect? Sorry, forgot, born-agains don’t indulge, and your wife knows all about life’s issues. Look, let’s just give it a rest. I’m leaving.”

That was two weeks ago. He’d been so troubled by his brother’s response that he kept putting off the inevitable. But it was past time, and he was ready to leave. It wasn’t that he feared facing her, to tell her directly he was leaving. He’d spoken of it often enough in the past when his patience had worn to a threadbare mantle of husbandly devotion threatening to unravel, long before the kids were old enough to be independent. He’d tried, he really had, as long as the kids were young. But they weren’t fools, not stupid the least bit, like their mother.

They’d accept with perfect equanimity what they knew would happen sooner or later. It just happened later. Mightn’t have happened at all if he hadn’t met the right person. And that was serendipitous. He wasn’t looking, he didn’t think he was in the market for anything like that. Just fed up, wanting to ease himself out of Edith’s life. Nothing unfair about that. They had nothing, absolutely nothing together; a younger version of the Elderberries. In fact a carbon copy of his own parents’ dysfunctional marriage.

He’d rather emulate his parents’ parting, than stick around and become the Elderberries. Anyway, he knew he wasn’t patterning himself after his father. His memory of being left in the care of a bitter, foul-tempered woman with no father to temper the blows ensured he’d never do anything like that to his children. And he hadn’t, so the comparison is trifling, superficial.

He could not, and would not put the thing off any longer. His leaving. His final departure. Leaving behind the bleak existence he had reluctantly shared with his wife, made tolerable only by the presence of their children. He’d waited too long as it was. Given up too much. His sense of moral and emotional obligation to their children was the only thing that had kept him glued to the sticky mess of that marriage. The glue had gradually dissolved, and he felt completely free now to leave, to make his own way, to finally realize the opportunities he had so long dreamed of, and been forced to evade.

He’d changed his mind about one thing. It would be more honourable, if he could use that word, to face her directly, before parting. He’d meant to leave a note, nothing more. Truth was, nothing more was required. They hardly spoke, hadn’t for years, other than required exchanges of information. Any warmth they had once shared so long ago had utterly dissipated, and so had the memory.

It pained him to force himself to look directly at her. She was so physically unappealing, there was nothing whatever about her that warranted a second look. She was a pitiful façade of a woman, nothing more. Representing one-half of a failed conjugal partnership that any self-respecting man would long ago have abandoned.

He felt not one iota of remorse over his decision. He was well justified. He deserved far better of life. Likely, so did she. He had no idea what she dreamed of, what she envisioned as the closing chapters of her life. And wasn't interested, either. Surely no prolonged extension of their mutual pain.

No shrill recriminations issued from her, nothing like what he so vividly recalled when thinking of his mother and her incessant accusations darkening their days. He and Hughie absorbing the bile meant for their father’s ears, while their father was blissfully removed from it all. No Edith, just slumped about. Did what she had to, without rancour or even a hint of blame. No sense of humour, of proportionality, never attempted to make something of herself. Instead, satisfied to blur herself from the past into the present, become an unattractive, unassertive blank.

Not even the mildest regret passed through his mind when he asked her to come and sit in the living room, where they could talk. He could almost swear he saw the word “talk?” reflected in her suddenly-alert eyes. Those washed-out grey eyes. Washed out? From weeping? He never once saw her crying.

He hardly believed she could surrender to emotions. Her stolid demeanor was all he could ever recall. As though she’d set up a barrier, perhaps protecting herself from ever having to defend herself. Better yet, be encouraged to do something with herself. Her voice betrayed no emotion, when she spoke in response to something he might say; dead, lacking inflection. Denial. Take me as I am, or leave. Well, he was leaving.

When, sitting across from her, and noticing again how lank her hair was, how pale and lined her face, jowls more evident with that ugly turtle-neck sweater so often worn, he hesitated. Looked momentarily beneath the features to find the young woman he had known and married, his own memory unable to supply him with even a notional recovery of her looks.

As he was about to state what to him seemed obvious, there was the sound of clicking nails. Heralding the arrival of Herrold. A golden retriever; typical family dog. Oddly, Herrold positioned himself directly before Edith. He felt a pang of regret; hadn’t meant to take the dog with him, although it had always been ‘his’ companion initially, not hers. In its younger days accompanying him on long walks, on outings with the kids. Though she was the one who fed him.

Edith looked directly at him, Herrald settling himself down before her, laying his shaggy old head on her lap. Her hands absently reached toward the dog, smoothed down the hair on top of its head, began to massage behind its ears. When, he wondered, had that happened?

He cleared his throat, said to her, simply, “I’m leaving”. Then waited. And waited.

She had dropped her eyes, to regard the dog, her fingers in constant motion behind its ears. A swift half-smile displayed itself, then disappeared. But even that brief smile took him by surprise. It completely altered her face, brought back memory of an earlier time. She looked so different in that instant. Then she spoke.

“Finally. I’ve waited long enough.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me. I won’t even ask how stupid you think I am. It’s been patently obvious for long enough. I suppose I should really thank you for this, for finally coming around to collecting enough courage to make the move. What took you so long?” She took a long breath. “You’re a selfish, self-involved man. You’ve no idea how much I’ve suffered over the years. You’re cruel, thought nothing of me but a succubus to you. I was your wife, your slave, your children’s nanny, your cook and house-cleaner. You think I couldn’t see the contempt in your eyes when you spoke to me? How much you hated to look at me? And then no longer did, and spoke only when you felt you had to, as sparingly as possible? Making me feel like a nonentity, a worthless, unintelligent harridan, a slob, an inadequate mother?"

He sat there, speechless. Hardly believing what he heard. He felt like how he imagined the 17th Century Dr. James Murray had, facing the astonishing reality that the most reliable of his volunteer lexicographers - the enigmatic Dr. W.C. Minor who had contributed more than any other to the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary and whom Dr. Murray was intent on honouring - turned out to be an inmate of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. 

 

 

The Forest Community

https://x.com/i/status/1816969964902928874

Once, long ago, an isolated farming community

existed on the perimeter of a steep-sided forested

ravine when it was in its second-generation of

logging. Now it is an urban forest, since municipal

housing gradually replaced the farming community.

For decades among community-area residents who

valued proximity to nature prized their contiguous

access to the mysterious forest interior, and over time

trails were established in a network meandering through 

the forest ascending and descending the hillsides of 

landscapes forever changeable with the seasons, each 

with its very particular allure. In its earliest days as a 

primary recreational destination for a small coterie of 

nature lovers there were foxes, quail, porcupines, skunks

raccoons and occasionally deer and wild turkeys, coyotes

who called the forest home -- aside from the more

commonly recognized denizens of the creek running

through it, the birds and small mammals. Seldom to

be seen now that housing has encroached on its wider

perimeter. The forest-hiking community has more

recently been introduced to the presence of those

for whom the forest enclave represents a potential of 

aerial acrobatic opportunities, and to that purpose a 

zip line now stretches high over the ravine's waterway 

promising athletic adventures for those who revel in risk. 

And No One Noticed

 

Did no one notice the escalation? That they

began their vigils even before Gaza was entered

by the military forces tasked to eliminate terrorists

bemoaning the plight of the Palestinians until they

soon changed direction championing Hamas

declaring them to be an army of liberation, their

goal to free Palestinians from the heel of Israel

clamping their future. These protests tolerated for

after all the West cherishes democracy and its right

to free association, free speech, free gatherings to

ventilate, and if chants of 'final solution', 'intifada' and

'from the river to the sea' had an obvious meaning

well, it's just the Jews and the antipathy they generate

by being Jews. Did anyone notice that the tempo 

rose each time there was no response from the law

from government, from police as demands for Israel's

existence to be annihilated, for Jews to be murdered

rose to a frenzy? Imbuing the protest organizers and

their willing followers with the confidence that nothing

they did would result in consequences for criminal

offences against society, morality, humanity. Encouraging

them to carry on, to raise their rhetoric of threats to

new heights. No one noticed? Wait: A tactical diversion

for suddenly American flags are burnt, patriotic statuary

and beloved symbols of the constitutional republic

are being vandalized, its democratic principles mocked.

Police inaction continues to enable and validate 

terrorist-championing agent-provocateurs and their 

passionately adoring followers shrieking threats and

crowd-prowling agitators focusing on immobilizing

and mocking duly constituted law and order in favour

of nihilistic hatred by demagogues whose long-range

plan is total destruction of the world as it is. They're

at it with a demonic fervor. And no one takes notice.

Shame, America!

Civility, the hallmark of decency in human relations

rests on its pillars of courtesy, respect, and dignity

expressions of which are also the framework of

diplomacy. These, extended as social, political terms

of reference between people of varying backgrounds

holding in common the values of human relations

form the scaffold upon which nations build trust and 

friendship in recognition that as no man is an island

nor is any nation without need of other nations' approval

and support at times of great upheaval in an increasingly

polarized and uncertain world. That when one head of

state travels to another in a ritual of partnership within

the global community, all due formalities of courtesy

be extended. To withhold that recognition of mutual

trust and awareness reveals a shameful lapse in a host's

understanding of the function of collegiality to achieve

a balance between each nation's needs and expectations

of the other. Such a failure represents a grave and utterly

unforgivable lapse in harmonious overtures of empathy.

Not Without Cause

It is a pejorative, a meaning attached to

the phobia of Islam that harbouring such

emotions as revulsion for a religion that

promotes itself as one of peaceful intentions

reflects ill on the part of those who, viewing

the barbaric actions of fervent Islamists

who cite the Koran and the Hadiths as their

sacred source for child abuse, scorn of women

along with sex slavery of female 'enemies'

of Islam wholly desirous in piety to the holy

scriptures. No deeds too dire in dispatching

to death those who spurn and scorn such a

hideous religious debasement of civilization 

no indignities too inhumane, as punishment

for evading a presumed obligation to declare

the shehada while failure to submit is disciplined

by the full wrath of god in human dimensions

of sadistic mutilation, torture and death.

Proud and Unbowed

Externally-imposed social isolation is utterly

desolating. Human nature is such that we are

gregarious creatures, taking comfort in being

among others, being socially accepted, finding

our place in a society of heterogeneous ethnic

groups, ideologies, religions, cultures, as one of

many. Complacency and comfort is ours when

good interpersonal relations are the order of the

day, every day, our neighbours acknowledging

us as we do them in the mutual respect of civility

extended to all. We stand erect and proud on a

pedestal labeled 'citizen of the world'. Until that

world lurches, stumbles backward and finds itself

in a historical place of infamy, deception and

rejection. Suddenly we are set apart, deemed

persona non grata as our neighbours, once our

friends, look through, not at us as others hurl

accusations and libels, claiming we are other than

what we have always been and we are shunned.

Now reeling  in dismay, our comfort and confusion

in equal measure is shared among ourselves and 

we wonder why it is that we are suddenly outsiders 

spurned and threatened. It was we who suffered 

another dread mass atrocity of barbaric savagery 

yet disbelief and blame rain on our heads. We 

shudder and shoulder our lot, proud and unbowed.

The World According to Islam's Dregs

They are wild, primitive, belligerent, steeped in

religious fervor -- convinced they do the work

of god, they are not inclined toward a goal

of peaceful intent inspired by sacred scripture

that enjoins its faithful to find harmony with

others on Earth, but conquest to lay at the feet

of a jealous god who will have none others

worshiped before him. Khat-compulsion

steers them toward imbecilic intentions to

militarily challenge others uninterested in violent

confrontation at the behest of a theocracy that is.

Contortions of reality suit them well in their 

bleak black-and-white world of primitivism

spurning the values of civilization. Yet as 

uncultured and and raw as they are these

bigoted zealots have possession of modern

weapons of destruction to accompany their

message to the international community --

surrender all  hope of survival encountering

their god of harmony and peace for all save

non-believers, in an evermore combative world.

Their Divine Commander

Internationally agreed-upon conventions on

permissible warfare strategies are of no

concern to militias acting as proxies to

nations who have sworn themselves to

upholding such conventions and nor are

they meant to, representing the subterranean

alleyways of sinister bypass shielding them

from denouement and subsequent censure.

Except when the nation is itself though a

member in good standing of the globe's

international forum on global peace and

security in outright defiance of civil norms

encapsulated in respect for human rights. For

the nation's leaders, its armed forces along with

sectarian tribal militias bow only to their

singular faith, its Messenger and his God's

supremacy as their divine Commander

dedicated to the sacred covenant demanding

death to all those who fail to declare themselves

at one with the legendary figure claiming

through his revered intermediary the unique

supremacy of the death-inspiring god of peace.

 

Battered, Bruised, Unbowed

The national psyche engrossed in the methodical

and orderly maintenance of records and statistics

the Third Reich prescribed meticulous assignments

of lists and methodology, labels and explanations

in their genius for classifications and scientific

enquiries as they prosecuted a bold new experiment

in human annihilation. True, there were/are still

first-person accounts and narratives neither neutral

nor objective but it is the record-keeping and the

pride of accomplishment that etches the history of

genocide. That era long gone, a new one has begun

where mass murder spurred by raging hatred benefits

from new orders of technology enabling recording in

live-time, of torture, humiliation, mutilation, rape and

murder as a grotesque triumph of historical proportions

enriching the saga of Palestinian terrorism's bold new

adventures in sadistic savagery worthy of a self-declared

underdog victimized by their targets' insistence on

existence and the quality of a venerable past through

insurmountable adversity where though battered and

bruised, like the Phoenix of fable the people remain

defiant of their legion of enemies' lethal solutions

adamant in their imperative denying death for life.

An Ocean of Misfits and Migrants

Flotsam and Jetsam: "Flotsam is defined as debris

not deliberately thrown overboard, from a shipwreck 

or accident. Jetsam describes debris deliberately thrown 

overboard by a ship in distress, to lighten the ship's load."

Precisely in human terms what is now placing the West

in a death spiral as developing countries shed their 

lowest common denominator in a population whose

humanity is scant and scarce, ridding themselves of the

bulk of their misfits, sociopaths, addicts, drug dealers

misogynists, neurotics and savagery-inclined psychopaths

as they cram dinghies and sailboats, scows and ferries

to inundate a land mass inhabited by mentally balanced

populations whose civil traditions of equality and justice

the incoming migrants flout and scorn while committing

societal crimes of unforgivable proportions. Leaving

host countries in a quandary of indecision, for they feel

compelled not to turn away the tide of humanity grasping

for lives of imagined wealth and opportunity achieved

through sweat equity, they will attain through crime.

As Europe's streets become flooded with migrants

scorning civilized sensibilities and authorities hesitate

to act lest they be accused of inhumanity while law and

order is flouted and law enforcement is mocked and

attacked, perpetrators of violence gain the upper hand

ululating in riotous celebration at the ruination of progress.

 

 

The Uncouth Barbarian

The greatest deplorable of the modern era

momentarily shifted from a crowd-pleasing

address as though subconsciously responding to

a strange inner urge of autonomic pause in his

thoughts and in that instant a drama unfolded

sinister in intent yet prompting a visceral reaction

of belligerent triumph over adversity that

wished him dead, inspiring an adoring crowd

to conflate the arrogant boor with the future

in reflection of the nation's past, a man who

would be king and during a tenure led his

country and its policies in trying times to both

acclaim and denunciation. Convinced he is

destined to resume his historic pursuit as a

patriot and saviour of America, by escaping

death he has attained iconic status, a stalwart

and determined statesman emerged from the

raw embodiment of bombastic self-acclaim

transformed in the brief moment between life

and death, leaving his adversaries to bemoan

the many and varied tics between faith and fate.

Wiser Heads Prevail

Witness to the high intelligence of a pacifist

confronted by an impudent mischief-maker

two opposites of the animal kingdom, one

observant and patient the other impulsive and

entitled. A casual confrontation, a theatre of

provocation and indulgence met by a wiser head.

Shades of Konrad Lorenz in tandem with Aesop.

A crow engaged with an indistinguishable object

of gustatory interest, interrupted by a small

red squirrel giving chase to access the object while

the bird moved a slight distance to watch. With 

no reaction to the rude interruption the squirrel

lost interest and drifted off while the crow resumed

efficiently pecking at the prize and the squirrel

returned, officiously nudging the crow which

obligingly once again hopped a short distance only

to see the squirrel befuddled with little interest in the

challenged object wandering dejectedly off so

the crow once again took possession of the prize.

If there is a moral to the pantomime neither shared

it with the curious onlooker, none the wiser.

Fated Destiny

With 193 sovereign nations the world is a

crowded and busy place where some countries

face disputes with their neighbours over issues

of geographic boundaries while most of those

countries' undisputed territories elicit no issues

of controversial challenges. A sovereign nation

with the territorial advantage of a massive size

numbering it first in the world in land mass can

still challenge a neighbour in territorial disputes

when aggression becomes deadly conflict. Nations

large and small with modest or immense land

and populations based on ancestral rights of

indigeneity form the basis of universally and

undisputed recognition yet even so the heritage

rights of large ethnic populations can be deprived

of their geographic patrimony when colonial

powers seek to ingratiate themselves through the

medium of sacrificing the rights of others in

defence of their power of execution. Anomalies

do exist as when the tiniest sliver of land dedicated

to reestablishing a homeland remains in bitter

disagreement of claim to ownership. And that

nation alone among hundreds urged by others

to accommodate the surly demands of those

disputing its legacy, writ in episodes of blatant

terror when atrocities rise above diplomacy not 

to be condemned yet the aggressed in response to

bloodshed as a declaration of war suffers global

outrage for its inhumanity in defending itself.

Defying Destiny

Has civilization progressed or regressed? It is

sometimes difficult to discern. What is evident

is the tendency among some to slander certain

others to a degree that weights public opinion

geared to an ideology that views others of varying

opinion as categorical enemies of the right way

which is their way. Myriads of suggestible minds

imbibing trusted sources' statements not as

opinion but a reflection of reality, a truth that

fits so neatly into the niche of bias embraced by

the many who have no tolerance for that old adage

of live and let live. Preferring action over inaction

meant to result in the solution of outliving those

whom they regard as the target their icon of

rectitude identifies as an enemy to be dispensed

with and so done, all is right with the world. 

There is no Escape from Retribution

Retribution has precedence over vengeance in the 

hierarchy of tribal and sectarian verities where it is 

justice that motivates the need to exact proportionate 

punishment to the deed, not a rooted custom in the 

pursuit of honour. And so it is that a people whose 

culture is vested in survival and justice metes out 

the ultimate penalty for mass slaughter embarking 

on a journey to extinguish the lethal malice that

mutilated, raped and murdered its own in a

maelstrom of sadistic savagery whose depraved

depth sent an entire population into deep mourning

and their leaders to launch a conflict whose intent 

was to destroy the living threat that would return 

until its resources were exhausted. The formula 

to exhaust those resources, to rout the threat and 

extinguish the human agency of its prosecution 

methodically proceeds, piece by piece as terrorist 

infrastructure and the hate-demented tribe that 

subscribes to its pursuit of mass death is eliminated 

from all its underground dens of planned carnage and 

from among its own vulnerable tribal coevals who 

fall among them as sainted sacrificial sufferers.

The Hospital Emergency Room

You have tentatively entered a place of no other

alternatives, an unwelcome involuntary decision

a place of desolate remoteness, of rumoured

dread in anticipation of concerning revelations

in explanation of a condition whose source has

brought you there. A large, open chamber with

regimented seating and it hosts people young

and old, drooping, heads nodding on chests

hands gripping armrests, some in pain and 

others suffering the pain of insecurity and fear.

There are items arrayed in the open corridor

where a line of glass-enclosed cubicles are

numbered, their purpose unknown. Where on 

display protective masks, rubber gloves, tissues

and hand sanitizers beg to be used under signage

informing their mandatory purpose. Some do others 

refuse.Your immediate destination is a kiosk to

register, where a  triage nurse evaluates your 

condition and symptoms to assign a designated 

classification reflecting the urgency of your visit. 

A large video screen displays the moving target of 

physician availability while the timeline informs a 

five-hour wait is yours. Those seated in rows awaiting

treatment studiously look anywhere but at one

another, shuffle feet, hunch shoulders, look

downward, while some seem delusional and

manic and at every angle stand tall, muscular

black-uniformed young security personnel. The

loud windy sound of the air conditioning system

resembles a mass of human voices in a chorus of

ambient sound. The floor appears grimy, an aura

of despair permeates the atmosphere. A young

woman huddles within a warmed hospital blanket

her face a changing display of physical pain

alternating with mental anguish. A young man

in garish socks, trousers and flapping shirt stands 

and twirls a strange smirk of triumph flickering on 

and off as he pirouettes. Bare bandaged arms, legs

craniums tell the story of some arrivals. The sound

of the ER's opening outer door shrieks like a hawk 

after prey. One by tedious one, names are called, people

grasp possessions and hurriedly follow attendants 

down endless corridors to examination rooms for

further queries, give blood samples, take tests, but  

their tribulation is not over. Few doctors are available 

to manage the dire needs of the waiting public so that

interminable wait remains suspended while pain and 

fear fail to abate even as sufferers submit and endure.

 

The Street - A Composite Sketch (34)

Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:

This is the Thirty-fourth part of the anatomy of The Street.

Here then is the last story of the families living on the street that was new two decades earlier. Although this represents the last story of the many families who make up that particular neighbourhood on a very short street in the heart of a much larger integrated community of people from various backgrounds, cultures and religions, this particular family was in fact the first to move into a house on the-then new street. And, as it happens, they also represent, in their forbears, the original Europeans to have settled in Canada.

They are Franco-Ontarians, French to their core, but also as Canadian as it's possible to be. Their first thought of self is as of Canadian, then French, then Ontarian, quite unlike Quebec-origined francophones. When they moved into their new house they were absolutely enthralled with the prospect of living out their lives on that street, in that house. It is a corner house on a spacious lot, with a large park directly across the street, and they have the ravine to their back. In the park there are various large play structures for area children.

And there are a number of area churches, which has always been vitally important to them because they are staunch Roman Catholics. They had both just embarked on their professional careers, she as a primary-school teacher, and he as a high-school science teacher. They loved their jobs and took their profession very seriously, feeling that society had entrusted them with the vital occupation of stimulating the young to learn, to discover, to engage eventually in a self-directed search for knowledge.

Their dedication to their work was well known by their colleagues, and appreciated by their various school administrations. The young people whom they taught reciprocated their appreciation for their efforts; they were generally acknowledged to be extremely effective at engaging and motivating young minds. And they were, understandably, anxious to begin their own family, to be given the opportunity of shaping and nurturing and supporting the needs of children of their own.

So wedded to the notion of parenthood that they had five children in fairly rapid succession, and she, of course, opted to stay at home to ensure that their children became imbued with their very own values and appreciation for life. They meted out emotional support and firm discipline almost equally, and instilled in their children a life-long church-attendance habit. This family prayed together, grew together, the parents observing with satisfaction and love the social and emotional maturation of their brood.

They were exceptional neighbours, in the sense that they extended good fellowship to everyone. Most people who moved into their homes on the street after this young couple recalled that they had been greeted by the pair upon moving in. She was slender, with flashing dark eyes and long curly hair, like a nyad, a water nymph of Greek legend. He was her cavalier, attentive to her every movement, each initiative. They made a striking pair. Little wonder people remembered them.

They were enthralling as a symbol of how young love appeared, and how a brace of intelligent and active people could form a superlative relationship in their marriage. He knew her body language and deciphered from it the quality of his own reaction. When among others, their glancing eyes making contact with one another continually, speaking volumes about their mutual love, respect and admiration for one another.

They were always to be seen together, strolling along the street, pushing baby carriages or strollers, the older children clinging to them. In the park they would have impromptu picnics to the delight of their children. They would play ball games; the parents would watch indulgently as their older children took tender care of their younger siblings, encouraging them to clamber up the ladder, down the slides. When the youngest was old enough they would all embark on bicycling escapades; the parents first the children in graduated size.

The family, just as with all the others on the street, grew older, became increasingly companionable with their near neighbours, and derived great comfort from the reality they felt in a communal spirit of acceptance and mutual trust. They would look after their near neighbours' lawns, take in the newspapers, in the absence of the home-owners, and the same would be done for them on those occasions they took brief absences for vacations or to visit with relatives.

Their gardens were always neatly arranged and well cared for. They exchanged perennial plants with neighbours each fall, when everyone was busy putting their gardens away in preparation for winter. If a neighbour fell ill, they brought over home-baked goods and offered helpfully to do chores, their concern so evidently genuine. The children, three boys and two girls, eventually followed one another from elementary school to high school and then on to institutes of higher learning.

And then, suddenly, neighbours realized they hadn't seen the father for a week or so. It was assumed he had taken a solo trip to visit relatives, or had gone away on a professional development course as occasionally had occurred. But the week turned into a month, and finally the mother confided, ashen-faced, to her closest neighbour that her husband had left. Left? Where to? Her face crumpled as she candidly explained that he had decided to leave his family. He had embarked on a new life-adventure with a much younger woman.

She was frank in discussing her dilemma, suddenly becoming a single parent. Albeit of grown children. The children were shocked and disgusted, felt abandoned and betrayed, as much themselves as for their mother whom only they knew how deeply the loss of her beloved life partner anguished her, hearing her weeping in the kitchen, at night in her solitary bed. The two older boys reconciled with their father when he explained how torn he had been in making his decision.

He told them his love for them and for their mother would always remain intact. But another, new emotion had overtaken him and he had felt helpless to deny it. They relented in their anger, and visited their father and his new partner occasionally. The younger brother and the two girls refused to accept his explanation and his choice to leave their mother. Their mother hardly knew where to turn, how to deal with her pain. She remained mute with her children, refusing to judge their father, or to condemn him.

It sounds trite, I know, but she took professional counselling and that helped. She returned to the workplace, at a retail store, and eventually managed it. And a year after her husband left, and she felt she had finally come to terms with her status as a woman left for another, younger woman, she succumbed to her children's suggestion that she look for a companion animal. The three younger children still lived with their mother, and the two boys were often over, but they felt that caring for a helpless young puppy would help their mother.

Eventually she did just that. And the neighbours who thought so highly of this family became accustomed to seeing the woman, no longer slender, but still possessed of a lovely smile tinged now with sadness, walking a small feisty dog on leash, recalling years long past when she and her husband walked together with complete fulfilment as a happy family, with their young children in tow.

 

The Street - A Composite Sketch (33)

Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:

This is the Thirty-third part of the anatomy of The Street.

They were most certainly there, it was their house, they had bought it and lived in it, but they might just as well not have been there for all that anyone in the neighbourhood knew about them, thought about them, saw of them. This was a tight-faced pair of like-thinking people, a husband and a wife, both working somewhere, and earning a tidy living together, and obviously seeing no value whatever in getting to know their neighbours. Outright spurning all attempts at casually friendly encounters.

Turning a blank face of unrecognition on neighbours whom they had lived beside for years, they would not even bother acknowledging offhand greetings. Which puzzled other people greatly. And caused them to metaphorically shrug off the very existence of this disengaged pair. For some reason socially estranged from everyone. Never even was anyone found to be visiting with them. If they had extended family it was a mystery where they might be.

And that was precisely how this family appeared to like things. No one meddling in their affairs. No one knowing the least little detail about them. Other families might put up election signs favouring one candidate, one political party or another during elections, but never they. Other families would invariably put up displays during the Christmas season, bright lights that spoke to their religion and the foundation of their values.

It was conjectured at first that perhaps they had moved to the area from a small, cloistered community, and had chafed at the fact that everyone in small communities was aware of everyone else's background and the close personal details of their lives. And that, as one wag had it, they'd had it with communality and sought instead to conserve their privacy by extending toward one and all a big, unfriendly raspberry.

That was their right, after all. No one, most certainly, must need feel any kind of collegiality toward the people among whom they live. Although it certainly makes life more pleasant. Those who went out canvassing for charitable donations at various times throughout the year, soon learned to bypass that house. It was abundantly clear that the couple meant to cloister themselves away from all human contact other than what they mustered toward one another.

And their relationship one to the other also remained a mystery since they seldom appeared in public together. After they had lived in their house for a number of years they had two children, one quickly after the other, two boys. Nothing seemed to change. The boys, as infants and on into early childhood were farmed out to caregivers. And when they began school and were yet in their early grades they became latchkey children; on their own in their house until their parents returned from wherever it was they laboured.

Like their parents the children never did mingle with other children on the street. They were remote, blank-faced little automatons, or so it seemed to onlookers. As the boys grew older and attended high school, other children on the street spoke of the strange alienation of the boys, who, although they most surely recognized children living in the neighbourhood, never gave so much as a nod to them, passing in the school hallways.

The two boys seemed not even to like one another. The older one ordered the younger one around on those rare occasions when they were seen in public, and the younger one curtly swore at the older one. Their voices would exchange opinions of one another and steadily rise into a shrill crescendo of blame and dislike. Objects could be heard, hurtled by one or another, in the garage.

Finally, it was rumoured and then authenticated that the boys were skinheads. Racists. There was no indication that their parents were involved in anything like that. No one had any idea, for example, that the parents were white supremacists, although their rigid, unbending manner toward others might have pointed in that direction. If the boys acted out their racist inclinations, it was never on the street.

At one point they appeared to have inducted another boy on the street into a kind of cabal, the older son of a military family living several houses up the street. That family eventually moved out to Western Canada, although their sons were left to continue their education, boarding with family friends. But this family remains on the street, although not of the street. More latterly two motorcycles have appeared and the now-grown young men are heard zooming off to some destination.

It's not as though the family neglects their property so that it represents an eyesore on a street of well-cared-for homes and properties. They are as meticulous about how their home presents on its exterior to the curious eye as anyone else on the street. The lawn is always mowed, there is never litter left on the property. In the winter months someone is always scrupulously shovelling snow off the driveway. For all of that, it's as though a phantom family exists; there, but not there.

The family remains an anomaly on a street where most of the residents exhibit a good degree of respect for one another, and many are inclined to be personal and friendly, valuing the good opinion of their neighbours. One suspects that such loners with their bitter personalities exist anywhere and everywhere among others, deliberately setting themselves apart. Whether they are social misfits, alienated from society or sociopathic misanthropics is anyone's guess. Is there much difference?

 

The Street - A Composite Sketch (32)

 

Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:

This is the Thirty-second part of the anatomy of The Street.

They are Anglo-Irish Canadians, fifth-generation, in fact, with a widespread extended family on either side. Neighbourly does not adequately describe their attachment to the community they live in and their relations with the people living on the street, although they're far more familiar with those on the bottom end of the street, where they live.

He's a burly man, plain-spoken and not too well educated. She's a petite red-head, the head librarian of the town's library branch. Their relationship has always been a light-hearted affair, in the manner in which they tease one another. The depth of their obvious commitment to one another is not to be doubted, however. Anyone can see that, watching them together.

Their boys were very young when they bought their house. Now, the boys are tall and broad, resembling their father but with the buoyancy of youth. When they were getting through high school, after fumbling through elementary school when their mother did her utmost to help them with their homework, there was the added headache of having to put in the requisite number of hours of volunteer work. Their mother scrambled to ensure they succeeded.

She isn't entirely thrilled by their choices of employment. The oldest aspired to become an auto mechanic and is now employed in the garage of the local Canadian Tire store. Where his fundamentally sound knowledge and struggle to achieve his mechanic's license paid off with respect from his employers and a decent enough salary. His younger brother was interested in cabinetry, and apprenticed to a local cabinetmaker.

At least, their mother sighed to some of her sympathetic neighbours, they'll always be employable. They obviously inherited their father's locomotion through life, not hers. She was a voracious reader; none of the males in their little family even picked up a newspaper. This puzzled her. She had deliberately taken the trouble to patiently read to her boys from the time they were little. And they had been attentive, loved being read to.

True, they were slow learning their alphabet, slower still learning to read, but she always had hope. It was soon dashed, when she finally understood that they loved her attention, her motherly support and emotional tenderness. It was her droning voice that put them to sleep at night, content and free of childish fears of the unknown. Intellectual pursuits were beyond them, they had no interest in anything outside their direct sphere of simply being.

She loved them anyway, just as she did her stolid, undemanding husband. He was a driver for UPS, and he loved his job. Not nearly as much as he loved - adored - his tiny red-haired wife. Her competence and knowledgeability sometimes frightened him. He feared she would get fed up with his inability to match her awareness of public events, literary figures, news in the making. But she never, ever reproached him, accepting him for the loving husband he was.

They had a large dog when the children were small. A golden retriever, a female whom she decided just once to allow her a litter before spaying the dog. The litter of adorable pups went quickly. Once they were gone, and her husband counted the money they made out of the purebred pups with disbelief, joking he could quit work and go into business as a breeder, she decided she had erred, should have kept one for herself.

She then went out looking for a golden retriever puppy, a male, and it ended up costing her more than what they had earned for two of their six puppies to her husband's consternation. The boys loved the two dogs, used to hang off their sturdy backs, playing with them. And as generally happens, as the boys grew older they lost interest in the dogs. Not their mother, she would regularly take them out for exhilarating ravine walks in the evenings and days off.

She had an older sister living nearby. Seeing the two together one knew instantly they were sisters, even though one was much larger than the other; it was the delicate facial features, the flaming red hair. The sister was an acclaimed author of children's books. Her books were translated and sold internationally. And the younger sister who lived on the street was the illustrator of the books.

The boys are now with their own families, although neither has yet had a child. They've settled nearby, in modest houses a short drive from where their parents live. Their mother still has the male dog, although it's too riven with arthritis to visit the ravine any longer. She lamented the passing of the female, three years older than the male golden retriever. When he goes she has no intention of replacing him.

Her husband has become passionately interested in gardening. Suddenly their property has been transformed by the work of his tender green thumb, and she's extremely proud of him. Their gardens have become the neighbourhood show-stopper. Better even than those the fellow up the street with the military has designed and coaxed into perfection. She knew she had chosen a winner, she fondly told her closest neighbour.