Return To South Bay... Or What I Did On My Summer Vacation

     A few years ago, I renewed my interest in photography with the purchase of a little Kodak digital camera from our local Canadian Tire store. I was going on vacation and wanted to take a camera just for family snapshots. At the time, I owned (and still do) a couple of film cameras that probably would have done the job. But film was getting harder to come by (come buy?) and the processing time is much longer than it used to be. Our local photo lab here in Paris now waits until they have a batch of them to make it worth their while putting fresh chemicals into their processor. What made me make the switch to digital was the fun I was having playing around with the camera on a cell phone that I had recently acquired at that time. So in  August of 2010, armed with my newly purchased Kodak C190, my son and I set off for the wilds of Northern Ontario to ride the Algoma Central Railway to the Agawa Canyon.

  Ok. That was 2010. What does it have to do with this year? Just this. In 2010, on our way to the Algoma Central Railway, we stopped at a little campground on South Bay on Manitoulin Island. Although kind of wide open, it was a nice spot. The stars that night were amazing. You know that you're in a good star gazing spot when the visible stars are packed so tightly together that you begin to understand why our galaxy is called the Milky Way. 

  The next morning I was treated to a beautiful sunrise. With the coffee pot gently burbling on the camp stove, I wandered down to the lake and managed to capture this memorable photograph.

      It was a stroke of luck really. While framing the sunrise with my little Kodak, the seagull dipped down and just touched the still waters at the edge of the bay. Anyone who knows me will recognise this image. It is the cover photo on my facebook page and also is the background image on my photographic business cards.

     This year, I decided that part of the itinerary of our summer adventure would include a return to South Bay on Manitoulin. I guess I just wanted to see if lightning could strike twice. 
     
     Just like 2010, we travelled up the Bruce Peninsula and camped overnight at Cypress Lake near Tobermory. The next day we poked about Tobermory for a bit before sailing over to Manitoulin Island aboard the Chi Cheemaun. It wasn't hard to find the campground. It is very near to where the ferry docks at South Baymouth. The campground looked pretty much the same but it was under new management. The older gentleman who was operating it on our last visit had sold it to a young couple. It wasn't quite as quiet as I remembered it. Perhaps it was the influence of the newer, younger owners but a few campsites down from ours, there seemed to be a fairly loud party going on with music blaring and loud conversation going on late into the night. By midnight their party had settled a bit and I managed to get some sleep. The stars weren't as spectacular as I remembered them either. Although it was a clear night, a very bright moon lightened the night sky enough to drastically reduce the effect of the starlight. Nice, but not as nice. "Oh well,"  I thought as I turned in for the night. " Maybe the old saying is true. The only constant is change."
     Or is it? The next morning I was up before the dawn. As I stumbled through the flap of our too small tent,  I was treated to this sight.  I couldn't believe it! A sunrise almost as beautiful as the last time we were here!

I quickly snapped a couple of images before firing up the camp stove and putting the morning coffee on. Equipped with much better camera gear (Although it doesn't seem to make much difference!)  and, later, a fresh cup of coffee,  I manged to capture the images seen below. 

 Lightning almost strikes twice! Although he didn't quite touch the water this time.

     Needless to say, I'm completely in love with Manitoulin Island. The sunrises alone are worth the price of admission! I've got a few more pictures of our summer travels but I'm still doing some editing. Stay tuned!

                                                           ...more later

Of Canada Day And Raspberries And Settlers And Gypsies

     Canada Day is drawing to a close as I write this post. I spent the day pretty much on my own. I had to work for most of the weekend but had Canada Day off as part of my normal work schedule. Because it was a working weekend for me, my son is at his mother's place and most of my friends are either working or have made other plans. Don't misunderstand, I don't propose to write a woe is me article about loneliness on National Holidays. Quite the opposite. I treasure my solitude almost as much as I treasure the company of friends. I often find that in solitude comes personal insight that reconnects me to the cosmic order of the universe.

     I had my first real taste of summer today as I wandered aimlessly back to the woefully small patch of grass and overgrown little garden which constitutes my back yard.  Six or seven years ago I had dug up a small garden patch along the fence line there and planted flowers as well as a patch of chives and a small patch of carrots. At the corner of my little garden plot I planted raspberry canes. With the exception of the past couple of years, I had done a pretty good job of tending my little garden. Of late, however, I have found that my interest in gardening, even at that minuscule a level, has diminished and my little plot has become terribly choked with weeds. The raspberry patch, however, is still producing and the first of the berries are ripening now. I sampled some of them today. 

     For many, the watermelon is the fruit that symbolises the sweet days of summer. For me, it is raspberries. We had a good sized patch of canes that grew in the backyard of my boyhood home. I can remember soaking my feet in the morning dew on the grass to pick a handful of them to put on my breakfast cereal. Later the same day, I might pick another handful to sprinkle over ice cream for an afternoon treat. All summer long that raspberry bush seemed to produce fruit endlessly. My mother would pick a basket of them and make raspberry jam and preserves, carefully measuring out the sugar and pectin and scalding the jam jars in a huge pot of boiling water to remove all impurities. Along with jams made with blueberries and other seasonal fruit. they would last well into the winter months.

     As I sampled the berries today, I was a little ashamed of myself for letting the raspberry patch become so overrun with weeds. I dug in and spent a good hour or more pulling weeds and stray vines. It seemed like the raspberry patch was rewarding my efforts, revealing more of it's fully ripened hidden gems as I went along. I know it's too late to dig up and plant the rest of my garden this year, but at least my raspberries will have a fighting chance! 

    I can never do any yard or garden work without thinking of my mother. Gardening was one of her passions and she took great  pride in her ability to provide an abundance of fresh fruit and home grown vegetables for her family. The daughter of a prairie farmer she grew up in Southern Manitoba during the depression when the ability to plant a garden was not a hobby skill but a survival tool. Even as a child  I was amazed by the amount of food that could be produced from a medium sized backyard garden. We had a root cellar in the basement of our house and our family didn't buy a bag of potatoes til well after Christmas. I guess to that extent my mom was a settler. Although she enjoyed travel, she was always happy to return home. For her, home was a place where she could put down roots both literally and figuratively and find comfort and refuge in a crazy world.

     My father on the other hand, embodied the spirit of the gypsy. He was a railwayman who literally made his living by travelling. At one point in his career he had enough seniority to take a regularly scheduled train run but refused the opportunity. He knew that he would get bored if he had to be on the same train everyday. He preferred to be on the spareboard where he was always on call to work any train or yard job on the line. In the too brief time that I knew him, I can't recall him ever being in one place for much more than a week at a time. As a child I learned the language of the railway spareboard. Four or five times out meant that he would probably be home for four or five days. Three times out meant he'd probably be home for a day or two. Two times out and he would be gone that night. Not that he didn't contribute to the home life of the family. On his days off, he would often bake large batches of cookies for us kids. Often he would spend the afternoon cooking a meal for the family that was a little more elaborate than the usual weekday fare. He took a measure of pride in his family and his crazy schedule was just a part of our life. If he had to be away for my mom's birthday or a special occasion a pot chrysanthemums (my mother's favourite flower) always appeared at our door. The local florist was a member of his lodge fraternity and one of his best friends! Even a man with the soul of a gypsy needs a place to call home. He knew it and so did my mother. Opposites  really do attract.

     So what does this all have to do with Canada Day? Just this. As Canadians we are all the sons and daughters of gypsies and settlers or at least only a few generations removed from them. Even the indigenous first nations people were largely a nomadic lot. This country has the second largest land mass on the planet. Even if you travel from the east coast to the west just turn around and head back. It's pretty much guaranteed that there's a lot of stuff you missed! This place is a paradise for the gypsy soul. And if your soul is predominately that of a settler, there is no better country on earth to settle down, raise a family and put down roots. Even if those roots only belong to some raspberry canes in the backyard of a rented house.

   Happy Canada Day!


                                                      ...more later. 



    

Outsourcing

     The people... united... will never be defeated! If this is true, then conversely, The people... divided... are like lambs before the slaughter of  any organisation with the will to exploit them.

     I was appalled on Sunday to hear  the story of Dave Moreau, slated to lose his I.T. job with The Royal Bank to a worker brought in from India to replace him. To add insult to injury, he was being required to train his replacement!  It seems that he is just one of 45 working Canadians being subjected to this indignity by a so-called Canadian corporation operating under a charter from our federal government.  In viewing a segment on this issue on CBC news tonight it would appear that other chartered banks are doing the same thing to varying degrees.

     What a difference a few days makes.  As of Thursday, the CEO of the Royal Bank had issued a public statement of apology. As a letter of apology it is pretty lame. On CTV's Canada AM Geoff Rowan of Ketchum Public Relations Canada said, " So would it be wrong for me to say blah blah blah? This is a typical lawyers letter that was written with the lawyers standing over top of the p.r. people."   It's  kind of telling that a guy in the business of spin doesn't buy the sincerity of this  little piece of corporate propaganda.
     
     So where are we to go from here? We Canadians are a pretty tolerant people. On the one hand,  part of me wants to say " Ok, the guy apologized ( lame as it was ) and the people effected are going to keep their jobs or get other jobs within the system. Let's just move on.

     But I can't.  It's not enough to push a bully away. A bully has to be taken down to the extent that he will seriously question his intentions if he tries to repeat his bad behaviour. This letter of apology, carefully worded and legally couched, is at best, a minor victory for the working people of this country. It is the height of arrogance to give a worker 90 days notice and then expect him to train the poor underpaid schlemiel who will replace him! This was the intent of a    financial institution in which Canadians have entrusted their savings and finances for over a century. This was the intent of a corporation that rakes in billions of profits every year operating under a charter granted to it by the government of the people of Canada. 
  
     This letter of apology is the best work of a corporate CEO who last year took home $12.6 million in salary, bonuses and stock options. I've seen better, more heartfelt letters written by schoolchildren!


                                        ...more later     

    

    

The Marathon

     A while back, a friend submitted a post to Facebook. He wrote,  " Supervisors are simply wardens of our time." I wanted to add, " Only if we allow them to be."

     Fridays can seem to take forever as we work away in anticipation of the weekend. As Thoreau so eloquently stated " The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." I think that  it ultimately comes down to the choices we make. If I find myself working at a job that provides little personal satisfaction or opportunity for growth, it seems incumbent upon me to make a careful analysis of my reasons for continuing with that job. The primary reason is usually pecuniary. The job provides me with enough money to afford the lifestyle I like or to finance whatever personal goals I have set for myself.

     " Find a job that you love and you'll never work a day in your life." That quote is attributed to Confucius although when he said it, I think the wise old philosopher could not have foreseen the demands of modern workplaces in a society which worships high productivity. The problem, it seems, is the near impossibility of finding a job that you love. To my mind, however, it's just a matter of perspective. 

     In my drinking days, a friend of mine and I were discussing our jobs in our favourite watering hole. He lamented that his " give a fuck factor" was pretty low. I responded that every job has it's "bullshit quotient." Right then and there we developed the Barker/ Boyd Formula of Employment Satisfaction which states that, " The give a fuck factor is inversely proportional to the bullshit quotient." ie. The more bullshit you put up with, the less you give a fuck.

   I have been fortunate. For the most part I have found a degree of satisfaction in almost every job that I have had. ( And they have been many and varied over the years.) I think that what has made the difference for me is primarily one of attitude. For that, I owe much thanks to some advice given to me by my Dad. The story goes like this.

     I guess I would have been about ten or eleven years old. I got into a dispute with my Mother over some household chores she had asked me to do. As a result I was summarily sent to my room to await punishment when my Dad got home. My Dad came home and, instead of meting out punishment, had a long talk with me about work. It went something like this.

Dad; You must think I've got a pretty good job eh?

Me; Yeah, you're a trainman. You get to ride on trains and travel all over the place.
.
Dad; True, but I also have to get up at four in the morning to catch my trains. I leave this house in total darkness without even getting to say goodbye to my family. Sometimes I'm gone for days and I'm not sure where I'll have to go or when I'll be back home. Sometimes in the winter I find myself hanging off a moving boxcar in the wind and the freezing cold and when I jump off the boxcar, I'm up to my waist in a snowdrift and I have to dig out a switch to put that boxcar onto a siding. I have to do this as fast as I can cause there's usually another train coming and we have to clear the main  track. In the summertime it's not much better cause I have to work when it's really hot or I have to work in the rain. The railroad doesn't care about the weather or how I'm feeling.  They just care about getting things done on time. If I don't do my work right, a train worth millions of dollars can get destroyed or, worse, people can get killed. Still think I've got a pretty good job?

Me; Well I guess your job is pretty hard.

Dad:  Work is work. Whether it's the job I do or the chores your mother asks you to do, put aside your personal feelings  about it and do the best job that you can. When you grow up, I don't care whether you're a ditch digger or a brain surgeon just do the best job that you can. Be a professional. Don't complain about it. Just do it.

    Sometimes when I'm having a particularly hectic day at work I remember my Dad and think,   " This is my railway."  It doesn't stop. It doesn't care about how I'm feeling. It just cares about getting things done as efficiently as possible. The trick is to rise to the challenge. Every job has it's challenges, even the most boring, mundane tasks. I've worked long nights in a factory putting product in boxes. The challenge then was just staying awake and alert enough to do the job well. Work is work. A challenge is a challenge.

    Any marathon runner will tell you that his biggest challenge is just to finish the race. Winning or placing in the top of your category is just icing on the cake. It's all about the attitude. When a marathon runner crosses the finish line, in the midst of the exhaustion you see on his face you will see something else. Satisfaction. He met the challenge. And given the opportunity he'll do it again. In the final analysis his achievement is  not much different from that of a successful brain surgery or even a ditch that  has been dug properly. The challenge has been met. The difficulty overcome. It's really just a matter of perspective.

                                          ...more later.