Category Archives: Humour

Mar 19 2015
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Climate, Humour

She’ll be comin’ around the mountain of snow

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A change of the dominant topic of conversation within the warrens occupied by downtown Moncton office workers surely signals – if nothing else does – the imminent arrival of that long-rumoured, nearly mythological, lady called “Spring”.

Bragging rights around the water cooler no longer extend to the those who can demonstrate, via selfies, the sheer volume of snow they have, with their strained and sprained muscles, removed in any given 24-hour period.

Nope; the kings and queens of the annual March madness that is winter in Moncton are now those who can answer the question, affirmatively and with definition and confidence: “So, did drinks come with your all-inclusive package to Cuba this year?”

Pick your poison: Havana or the Dominican Republic’s Santo Domingo. Of course, some here still favour the old standards. The Mayan Riviera along Mexico’s west coast is still a sweet peach of a place. So is, for the well-traveled sophisticates among us, Valparaiso in Chile.

But wherever we choose to bake on a beach, we are sending a message to the universe: Enough, already! And, at about this time of the year, the universe always heeds our entreaties. Doesn’t it?

As I say “we”, I should clarify that I have never left my winter perch for sunny, southern locales in the thick of a Maritime winter. After all, someone should man the snow fort, shouldn’t one?

Besides, being snowbound in Moncton isn’t all bad.

It could be Charlottetown.

There, my wife and I had the exquisite pleasure (and timing) of caring for two of our grandchildren in mid-February whilst our daughter and her husband scuttled off to Costa Rica for 10 days.

“Sure, honey,” I said to Jess, as we negotiated the terms of our sojourn. “No problem at all. This is the age of mobile communications. I’ll just transfer all my files on a flash drive and work from your home office there.”

Then came the snow.

Buckets of white poured from the sky. I broke my son-in-law’s shovel just clearing off the back deck. I ventured out into the blizzard to buy the last two scoops the city proffered. I broke one (again), and the other won’t be seen until the next ice-age recedes to reveal a glacial lake where my daughter’s garden once flourished.

Did I get any work done – the sort that actually pays me to, you know, hang out with snow plow drivers in Prince Edward Island? Let’s just say I arrived home to Moncton fitter than I have been since I swam the Halifax Arm in February, on a dare, when I was 22. (By way, just try that feat this year; I’m told you can skate from Jubilee Point to Prospect Bay without breaking the ice once).

And so, in the winter of 2015, the totals mount. Saint John broke its accumulation record, so did Charlottetown. Moncton is almost there (12 centimeters to go). Halifax? Forget about it. That coastal city has wrapped itself in blankets and assumed the fetal position. Municipal representatives, arguing with the provincial government, are still hemming and hawing over the issue of snow tires on cars that regularly traverse 10 per cent inclines of ice in the urban core. (It’s good to know that at least one thing doesn’t change in the city of my adolescence: utter stupidity).

As for all you periodic “sun-wingers” from the Hub City, enjoy your bragging rights, and know that when you return home, lovely, dulcet “Spring” will be just around the corner, just behind the snow bank you weren’t here to shovel.

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Mar 02 2015
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Humour, Politics, Satire

In praise of magical thinking

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I’m with Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Rick Nicholls.

He says he doesn’t believe in evolution though, he allows, this doesn’t mean he speaks for everyone in his Tory caucus.

His is just the private view of a pubic official charged with the best interests – educational, or otherwise – of those who elected him.

Hey, no biggie, right?

In fact, truth be told, I’m not so sure about all this global warming folderol. I mean, have you looked out your back door recently? Those aren’t palm fronds nestled up against your garden trellises. For one thing, their round and white. (How’s that for  empirical observation in action)?

Then, there’s the whole gravity thing.

Back in the 17th century, some English guy with obviously way too much time on his hands stated that he “deduced that the forces which keep the planets in their orbs must (be) reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve: and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her Orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the Earth; and found them answer pretty nearly.”

On Earth, the eggheads say, gravity can be expressed as an equation, thusly: g = 9.80665 meters per second (squared).

But, as I don’t know what the devil (who is a real dude, don’t you know) this actually means, I can’t really get behind any of it.

As I’m fond of saying: “I know what I like; and I like what I know.” That, dear reader, is good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you.

Here, then, are some things I do like:

The Flat Earth Society, the Book of Revelations, Nostradamus, numerology, palmistry, paranormal research, transubstantiation, and movies about the Apocalypse (you know, the documentaries).

I also like Julie Andrews singing “a few of my favorite things”, the late Isaac Asimov writing about the secret, space-faring history of the human race in the far distant future, Scientology, sidewalk magicians who can somehow levitate at will, and unicorns (before they went extinct on the ninth day after Creation, which was, I believe, a Tuesday – never an auspicious time in anyone’s week).

And, lest I forget, there is always AC/DC (though I am perturbed by their claim that something called E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C-I-T-Y is what makes them sound so loud).

I used to hate snow. But that changed not long ago when Old Man Winter appeared to me in a dream and made a few promises I have not yet forgotten.

“Hey, fella,” he said, tripping over his cascading, white beard, “I’ll make you a deal: If you shovel out your driveway and sidewalks regularly, I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that the depth of the white stuff I belch from my maw won’t be nearly as deep as it will be on the driveways and sidewalks of your neighbours.”

In my stupor, I mumbled, “Honestly?”

Of course, he explained, that’s how these things work in a simple, straightforward universe where science is, after all, just a matter of opinion. In fact, I believe his exact words were: “Buddy, paisano, you can take it to the bank.”
So, that’s what I’ve been doing – one might say, religiously – since the middle of November: shoveling, re-shoveling, re-shoveling again sometimes for hours a day.

And do you know what? He was right.

My pavement is clearer, less encumbered, more passable than it would otherwise be had I ignored the advice of my friendly, household deity.

How’s that for evolution?

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Feb 05 2015
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Climate, Humour, Weather

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. . .it’s winter out there

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In late November of last year, when the mercury in Moncton peaked at 8 degrees (C), the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued this report: “The epic lake effect event will be remembered as one of the most significant winter events in Buffalo’s snowy history. 

“Over five feet of snow fell over areas just east of (that city), with mere inches a few miles away to the north. There were 13 fatalities with this storm, hundreds of major roof collapses and structural failures, thousands of stranded motorists, and scattered food and gas shortages due to impassable roads. 

“Numerous trees also gave way due to the weight of the snow, causing isolated power outages. While this storm was impressive on its own, a second lake effect event on Nov. 19-20 dropped another one-to-four feet of snow over nearly the same area and compounded rescue and recovery efforts. 

“Storm totals from the two (systems) peaked at nearly seven feet, with many areas buried under three-to-four feet of dense snowpack by the end of the event.”

All of which is to say: Thank the Almighty New Brunswick is not yet upstate New York, where nordic skis and snow shoes will most certainly influence Manhattan’s annual Fashion Week this spring (assuming, of course, there is a spring).

I thought I made myself perfectly clear to the universe a few weeks ago when I wrote about a warm, rainy, green Christmas and how eminently copacetic I was about that fine result.

Now, daily, I contend with snowmotion alerts from my worthy colleagues at this newspaper and others, such as this one, yesterday, from intrepid reporter Eric Lewis:

“Who is winning in New Brunswick’s Great Snow War of 2015? Winning or losing depends on your perspective, of course. Do you win if you have the most snow or the least? That’s up to each individual, but there’s no shortage of frustration in the province after four storms have blasted the province over the last nine days. . .And it’s not over yet. ‘We continue to see a path of storms coming up and down the East Coast of the United States and heading into the Maritimes,’ AccuWeather meteorologist Mark Paquette told the Times & Transcript Tuesday morning. ‘And there’s nothing that’s going to make this pattern change.’”

Oh marvellous. That’s just fine.

Am I the only sap in this now not ironically named Great White North who finds the glinting, gleeful reports of weather forecasters, at this time of the year, profoundly irritating?

“Gosh, Mike, do you know what’s hitting the Maritimes this week. . .again?”

“Why, no Darlene, dooooo tell.”

“Well, Mike, you better get your Canada Goose parka on and your no-name- brand mukluks velcroed up, because it’s gonna be messy.”

“Gee, Darlene, how messy is it gonna get?”

“Well, Mike, as near as we can tell, 400 centimeters of the white stuff is gonna get dumped on Moncton, New Brunswick, within 36 hours of constant, howling, door-busting, roof-collapsing precip.

“Ha, ha. . .that’s great, Darlene. . .So what should people do?
“Oh. . .I don’t know. . .maybe buy a shovel or kiss their arses goodbye?”

“Ha, ha. . .you’re such a caution, Darlene.”

“See you next week, Mike. . .I’ll be reporting on rope swings from sunny Bermuda. . .Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”

As it happens, over the past week, I’ve been frantically googling Bermuda almost every day. Here’s what the official weather website imparts:

“Cooler conditions and decreasing winds into Wednesday as high pressure builds in from the northwest. Another frontal boundary begins to move into the area late Thursday, bringing showers and strong winds, with some gusts near gale force early Friday.”

Except, of course, the highs there are 21 (C), and the lows are 13 (C).

Our higher temperatures are -21 (C). And the lows here are near absolute zero (on Pluto). And still, somehow, it snows.

Again, though, it could be worse.

At least, we’re not upstate New York.

Trust me, the only thing worse than Buffalo in the wintertime is. . .well, Buffalo in the summertime, or, come to think of it, any time.

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Dec 26 2014
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Humour, Personal History

Confessions of a mall-walking man

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I arrive each day, always determined to better my time. I stroll deliberately through the Sobeys’ entrance or, when the weather is inclement, the Wal-Mart doors (because that’s the closest anchor store to the coat closet my 15 bucks a year as a member of the Champlain Mall walking club buys me).

Over the past two-plus years I’ve nailed down this routine as fine science: Wake up, write a column about some absurdity in world affairs, check my time, review my weather app, ascertain which starting line makes most sense, and proceed to said launch point. And, then – having pulled up the stopwatch on my iPhone – I’m off.

On a good day, I can do four miles winding in and out of the mall’s main thoroughfares and minor egresses in just over 45 minutes (averaging 11 minutes and 30 seconds a circuit).

On a bad day, my time is more like 13 minutes a mile. Bad days invariably arrive during the high Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter). On those excursions, I am a canoeist in an unruly river, strewn with rocks, logs, drifting branches and sudden, unexpected eddies.

“Um,” my wife and walking partner often tells me as she senses that I am about to sprint through the rapids of humanity obstructing my straight shot adjacent to the food court, “please try not to knock anyone down.”

I sniff and snarl at the mere suggestion. After all, I have become a voyageur of the mall. I know, instinctively, where to duck and weave, when to zig and when to zag. My paddles are my arms; my vessel is my butt.

I can’t say the same about some of my fellow travellers in the “domed domicile”.

One guy in a motorized cart, festooned with flags of Canada, New Brunswick and, I think, the old American Confederacy, zooms by so fast, you’d think the cops were hot on his tail.

Beware ambulatory folks: Death by rocket-powered wheelchair is a distinct possibility in this place where most still walk, not run, to their final destination.

Postponing that last walk is, of course, the point of it all. And that makes the routine in the credenza of consumer delights – that most secular, coarse and crass of all places – almost sacred. How much more life can you squeeze for yourself from the simple act of staying active, regardless of the means and the venue you choose?

Then, of course, there’s the secret life of the mall, itself, when it’s quiet on, say, a Sunday afternoon, in mid-July, when no one’s around except the blessed night people who tend to the mechanical rooms and underground passageways – the ones who make the whole thing tick before the wallets and purses arrive, and long after they’ve gone. When you’re a serial walker, you get to know them, after a while and in a fashion. And they get to know you.

“How’s your time today?” a security guard asks.

“Not bad,” I yelp, “though the shin splints are acting up.”

“Yeah. . .That’s because the floors beneath the surface are solid concrete. Here. . .l’ll show you where you can stretch. . .”

And he does.

Here comes the UPS guy, just in front of Purolator man. I know them both (though not nearly as well as they know each other). Still, they seem to enjoy asking me for reports from the front lines of their regular routes – their time, in this mall, being more valuable than mine.

“So, where are the bottlenecks this morning,” the UPS guy asks me, as he hauls a lorry loaded with goods and merchandise for any number of retailers.

“Stay clear of the Sears-aisle bathrooms,” I advise. “Major water-works there. . .Lots of people milling around.”

“Good to know,” he barks congenially.

And I proceed, happily chugging away past the ladies’ apparel stores, the tea shack, my dentist’s office; past the cell-phone kiosks where the merry techs spend as much time solving luddite problems as they do pushing product; past the HMV, the quilt store and, finally, to the coat closet by the Wal-Mart, where I literally bump into my club’s president and indefatigable cheerleader.

“Where’s your lovely other?” she asks, referring to my wife.

“She’s already done,” I laugh. “I’ll find her.”

I check my stopwatch and smile.

It’s been a good day.

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Dec 24 2014
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Humour

A visit from the ghost of X-mas past, present and future

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house 

not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The koolaid was drunk by the incoming chair

of New Brunswick’s new government, so long may it fare.

The people were snuggled all smug in their beds

as St. Brian and company messed with their meds.

Still, I, on my pea and with my hands firmly cupped,

had the sneaking suspicion I was about to get stuffed.

Okay, I should probably end this travesty of a beloved Christmastime doggerel right about here. After all, the author of the original A Visit from St. Nicholas most certainly did not ask to be so routinely and savagely parodied before or after his death. Indeed, Clement Clarke Moore has been rolling in his grave every year at about this time on the calendar since 1863.

Still, the temptation is irresistible. There’s something about the facile cadence of the verse, the jaunty rhythm, the easy rhyme, that just makes a wonk want to wag his tail. Indeed, famous wits have loved to murder this poem since it first appeared.

Here’s American humourist James Thurber’s 1927 opening “stanzas” in The New Yorker magazine:

“It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren’t even any mice stirring. The stockings had been hung carefully by the chimney. The children hoped that Saint Nicholas would come and fill them. The children were in their beds. Their beds were in the room next to ours. Mamma and I were in our beds. Mamma wore a kerchief. I had my cap on. I could hear the children moving. We didn’t move. We wanted the children to think we were asleep.”

And here’s Dave Barry on the subject a couple of years ago in the Miami Herald:

“’Twas the night before Christmas. Or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever religious holiday your particular family unit celebrates at this time of year via mass retail purchases. And all through the house not a creature was stirring, except Dad, who was stirring his third martini in a losing effort to remain in a holiday mood as he attempted to assemble a toy for his 9-year-old son, Bobby. 

“It was a highly complex toy, a toy that Dad did not even begin to grasp the purpose of, a toy that cost more than Dad’s first car, a toy that was advertised relentlessly on TV with a little statement in the corner of the TV screen that said ‘SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED’, which was like saying that the Titanic sustained ‘some water damage’, because this toy had more parts than the Space Shuttle. And speaking of space, Dad was now convinced that extraterrestrial life did indeed exist, because the assembly instructions were clearly written by beings from another galaxy. And these beings insisted on Phillips screwdrivers, and Dad could not find his Phillips screwdriver. In fact, he was wondering who ‘Phillips’ was.”

And here’s an anonymous entry to the sweepstakes of swiping good master Moore’s effort:

“It was the night before Christmas, when all thru the abode only one creature was stirring, and she was cleaning the commode. The children were finally sleeping, all snug in their beds, while visions of Nintendo 64 and Barbie, flipped through their heads. The dad was snoring in front of the TV, with a half-constructed bicycle on his knee. So only the mom heard the reindeer hooves clatter, which made her sigh, ‘Now what’s the matter?’

“With toilet bowl brush still clutched in her hand, she descended the stairs, and saw the old man. He was covered with ashes and soot, which fell with a shrug. ‘Oh great,’ muttered the mom, ‘Now I have to clean the rug.’

“‘Ho-ho-ho!’ cried Santa, ‘I’m glad you’re awake. Your gift was especially difficult to make.’ ‘Thanks, Santa, but all I want is some time alone.’ ‘Exactly!’ he chuckled, ‘I’ve made you a clone.’”

Ah, yes. . .

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The Peromyscus leucopus had asked of his master,

“What should come first: hydraulic fracturing or certain disaster?”

The premier, well fed, spent nary a moment

to consider the question before answering in foment.

“The people have spoken and that’s good enough for me,

as for the rest, only time will see.”

And so, happy holidays to all and to all a relatively restful, worry-free, mindful, meditative, non-paranoid night.

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Dec 24 2014
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Humour, Personal History

Ode to the frigid joys of a frosty evening

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I must admit, I have never been a big fan of winter. Now that it is upon me, as inevitably as a snow plow in a nor’easter comes to wreck the foot of my driveway after solid hours of diligent shoveling, I am loathe to sing its praises even to my impossibly cheerful grandsons and granddaughters who need only toboggans and cups of hot chocolate to keep them deliriously happy.

I am more likely to cleave to Shakespeare (“Now is the winter of our discontent”) or Robert Byrne (“Winter is nature’s way of saying, ‘Up yours’”) than to Paul Theroux (“Winter is a season of recovery and preparation”) or, heaven forbid, William Blake (“In seed time, learn; in harvest, teach; in winter, enjoy”).

Yeah, well listen up Billy B., I ain’t half done me own learnin’, let alone harvesting. And don’t even talk to me about enjoying anything. I’m far too young for that fatuous folderol.

And yet. . .

A year ago to the day – this day – my wife and I were scheduled to fly into La Guardia and then commence what was to be a wonderful, middle-aged adventure exploring lower Manhattan on foot.

Only, winter got in the way. Flights from Calgary to Halifax were canceled. Every airport along the northeastern seaboard was, for days, shut down, covered under blankets of snow and sheets of frozen rain.

In fact, last winter turned out to be the longest, coldest, most intractable in 50 years (or so the cab drivers in Moncton reliably informed us as they rushed, almost daily, to our rescue).

I cursed the fools who boasted about their snow mobiles and blowers – the ones who couldn’t stop chattering about the next, big blow from the polar vortex, the ones who took perverse delight in the worst possible weather.

I steeled myself to the unavoidable, grittily clearing my walkways and paths of ice and crunch, believing that my labours would somehow presage an early and blessedly warm spring, full of green shoots and buds.

Then, one atypically bright day, my eldest grandson arrived with his father for a visit. They surveyed the product of my efforts and concluded that the banks I had created around the house were sufficiently high to embark on a classically Canadian wintertime project.

“Poppy,” the young one said with the fearless certitude of every five-year-old on the planet, “We need to make a snow fort.”

“Well,” I moaned, slightly, “maybe later, okay?”

“Oh no,” he insisted. “We have to do it now, before it all melts.”

I looked at the outdoor thermometer. It read 10-below. But I also knew I wasn’t going to win this argument.

And so we began with shovels and buckets and breaks for juice and water. We dug and plowed and burrowed until the sun went down and long after.

His Dad helped with big, lurching heaves of icy boulders and fine, craftsmanlike carvings into the walls of the forming network of latticed snow caves.

When we were done, long after everyone’s bedtime, we lay there for a piece under the ceiling our efforts, hope and imagination had created under the great black bowl of the Milky Way.

Then, it all came down on us in one great, calamitous bump. Snow, once the enemy, had become the blanket that covered us all as we joyfully shoved chunks of it down the fronts and backs of our parkas and ran like wild animals, screaming into the dark, suddenly soft and warm night.

It’s 2 am as I write this, and I am looking at the spot where we built Casa Bruce last year. The ground is frozen, but snow is conspicuously absent. I check my weather app, which tells me that Christmas, this year, might well be green.

Still, I don’t mind, as I wait to welcome my grandchildren for the holidays. We’ll make do. We’ll have fun. That’s what they always manage to teach me.

After all, as Anton Chekov once said, “People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”

As for me and Albert Camus, “In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”

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Dec 17 2014
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Humour, Personal History

Diamonds on our souls, as we dream and wonder

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“You know, Poppy, I love Grandma’s sausages and syrup,” Dingleberry Number One informed me as I prepared the wieners and warmed the local tree sap.

“Of course you do,” I replied while inadvertently flipping flapjacks into a soapy sink. “Grandma knows how to do everything,” I growled.

Still, Dingleberry Number Two chimed in from his illegal peanut-gallery perch on the kitchen counter: “You know how to do some things, too, Pops, don’t you?”

I thought about this as I ran warm water against the pancakes, turned down the stove-top, so as not to reduce the sausages to charred pencil ends, and blew my nose into the the only dish towel my two, fine young cannibals (AKA, grandsons) hadn’t earlier claimed for identical purposes. “Yes, me boys,” I bravely ventured, “For one thing, I can make stuff up.”

Number One: “Grandma says you tell stories.”

Number Two: “Yeah, and sometimes they’re not even true.”

Oh, oh, oh. . .perish that thought. “They are always true,” I insisted. “It’s just that sometimes they’re not factual.”

Consider, I said, the story of the big, rock-candy mountain cave.

Number One: “I used to like candy.”

Number Two: “Uh. . .well. . .I used to like candy, too.”

Well, then, I announced, “you’re sure to like this story.”

Number Two: “Then, um, do you think we could have some candy. . .or, maybe, a cookie. That would be okay.”

No time for any of that, I declared. “Attend to Poppy, for he – who is I – is about to pontificate.”

As all eyes rolled in breathless anticipation, no doubt, of their grandfather’s preternaturally gifted story-telling, I commenced:

“Once upon a time in a land far away, a bunch of people lived in a cave. But not just any cave. Its walls were studded with diamonds and its floors were paved with good intentions; so much so, in fact, that every time a worthy resident of Spelunkertown trod upon its main thoroughfares, the ground would gurgle happily, “thank you for walking all over me,” before asking, “would you like a diamond to keep you company as you go along your way?”

Number Two: “What’s a diamond?”

Number One: “It’s like a cookie, only it sparkles.”

Number Two: “Pops, I’ve changed my mind. . .Could I have a diamond, please?”

All in good time, my eager chap, I said, “but first a song. . .Who, here, knows the chord structure to Neil Young’s ‘Heart of Gold’? . . .No?. . .No one?. . .Okay, then, back to the story.”

Number One: “So, Grandma’s just out getting groceries, right?”

Number Two: “I think she keeps the cookies in the pantry.”

Enough, I cajoled: “Do you want to hear the end of this story, or not?”

Number One: “Not really.”

Number Two: “I could eat.”

Grandma will be back soon enough, I sputtered.

Meanwhile, where was I?. . .Oh yes. . .

“After a while, the good people of Spelunkertown had taken so many diamonds from the walls of their shared cave that it ceased to be interesting. No one came to see it anymore or walk along its broad, compliant streets. No one cared whether the hole in the earth they once loved together might inspire the excavation of new and even better grottos where people could gather in glittering conviviality and companionship.

“No one thought of their neighbours, because their neighbours had taken their diamonds to lands far away, across the horizon. People, once close, had become distant memories to one another.”

Number Two: “I’m confused.”

About what?

“You said the story was about a “big rock-candy mountain cave”.

Uh-huh.

“So, where’s the candy. . .I was waiting for the candy.”

It’s a metaphor. When all you’re interested in is satisfying your own appetites, then you’re always going to be alone in the world.

Number One: “I’m hungry. . .Are you done?”

Indeed, I was.

Number Two: “Okay, Pops, sit next to me.”

Number One: “Poppy, you sit next to me.”

Funny, that. I can sit next to both of you for as long as you want.

And with that, we sat together and ate together a glorious meal of soapy pancakes and charred sausages on the big couch that Number One, thinking of Number Two, had picked for Grandma’s house.

And, together, we fell asleep in our own, dazzling cave of dreams and wonders.

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Nov 18 2014
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Climate, Humour, Weather

An immigrant’s guide to the Great White North

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Dear newcomer, from a warm part of the world, rest assured that Canada is a safe and happy place. Our national statistics agency reliably assures us that we boast among the lowest crime rates in the G20, the highest “happiness” index in the developed world, and the greatest per capita consumption of mindless TV shows and comfort food in the modern era.

Now, about our annual deep freeze.

No doubt you caught a piece the other day in this country’s self-anointed national organ of news and popular opinion. The headline, if I’m not mistaken, was: “Teaching Immigrants to endure – even embrace – Canadian winters.”

The front-page Globe and Mail article by Ingrid Peritz went a little something like this: “Pauline Perrotte stood before her class and asked her pupils, all newcomers to Canada, what kinds of rumours they’d heard about Canadian winters.”

It should be said, of course, the Ms. Perrotte is an expat from the south of France who alighted on these frigid shores barely a year ago to teach immigrants how to cope with the Great White North’s signature season. “People hear about blizzards and ice storms, and they start worrying about their families and children,” she declared. “We try to reassure them, tell them that winter is a magnificent season and that adjusting to it is part of their integration.”

None of which stopped a woman from Iran, in her class, from fretting: “You need to wear eye glasses, because your eyes can freeze.”

Another emoted: “It’s as cold as a refrigerator.”

No, objected a fellow pupil from Mauritius, “It’s colder.”

As a seventh-generation Canadian who knows all about the weather of this northern-most reach of the “New World”, I’ll take each of these concerns in reverse order.

Mr. Mauritius, Canadian winters are certainly not colder than a refrigerator. They are colder than the vacuum of space that surrounds the robotic probe somebody just landed on a comet orbiting the sun the other day. And, my friend, darker. . .much darker.

Ms. Perrotte, winter here is not “a magnificent season.”

Indeed, despite what you’ve heard (or been propagandized to instruct), eight or nine months of the year, in which frozen rain, snow, sleet, ice pellets, and drenching slop fall for hours, days and, sometimes, weeks on end, cannot reasonably compare with. . .well, Cuba.

I like Cuba. In February, Cuba is a friend of mine. I imagine I’ll go there one day when my neighbour’s snow blower doesn’t blow a pin, or my back doesn’t prevent me from boarding a plane that’ll get delayed or cancelled thanks to. . .you guessed it. . .the Canadian winter.

As for the woman from Iran who thought glasses would protect her eyeballs from freezing, think again dearie. Frozen pins and cones in the thick of the white is practically a brand statement at Quebec City’s winter carnival (spectacles, notwithstanding).

Having dispelled the rumours and myths about our finest season, here’s a little more advice, anecdotal though it may be, to warm the cockles of your hearts in this black-side-of-the-moon season.

Never throw away your Halloween pumpkins. Simply repurpose them as creepy heads to top your several dozen snowmen. When spring arrives, sometime in July, pop them off, peel them down and cut them up. The soup is terrific. Trust me.

Likewise, never look a crappy mountain bike in the tires. For budget-savvy Canadians, these puppies are godsends. You can pick them up, for a song, at any police auction, ride the bejeezus out of them all winter long, save yourself a fortune in gas, and when that first breath of spring comes wafting in, abandon them in a Walmart parking lot where snow ploughs are sure to bury them under a small mountain of grey slush and ice. In due course, they will emerge, like rusty daffodils, to find their way to yet another police auction.

Hey, babies. . .in Canada, we’re all about the recycling.

The bottom line, newcomers, is that there is a way to survive the Canadian winter.

Tough out the cold and the dark, knowing that the warmth and the light is just a calendar flick or two away.

After all, the summers are our best two months of the year, especially if you’re fond of mosquitos.

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Nov 03 2014
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Humour, Politics

The Big Smoke is now under Bruce management (sort of)

I never really got to know my distant cousin John Tory. Though we share an antecedent (my great-grandmother, Sarah Jane Tory Bruce was his great-great-aunt. . .I think), he became a wildly successful lawyer, corporate executive and fundraiser for charitable, good works, whilst I, in contrast, became a curmudgeon.

Last week, Cousin John ascended on a wave of strategic voting to the position of Mayor of Canada’s largest metropolis.

Last week, I wrote five columns for the Moncton Times & Transcript, walked 28 miles, and wondered when Damon on “The Vampire Diaries” would finally push the veil between dimensional plains and re-enter the “real world”.

All of which is to say that Toronto, the city of my birth, got the better product of the Tory-Bruce issue to lead it.

Then again, that’s actually not saying a whole helluva lot.

John prevailed, with 40 per cent of the vote, in the municipal election last week; but that was just seven points ahead of Doug Ford, who ran on his brother Rob’s behalf.

Rob, we should never forget, is the man – four years the mayor – who appeared in public as “tired and emotional” as he explained why his incessant drinking led to his recreational fondness for crack cocaine, racial and sexist slurs, and bizarrely bad, almost ritualistically suicidal behaviour.

That his older brother Doug should have come within single digits of electoral success, without any platform for change or progress – indeed, without any ideas at all – is all anyone needs to know about politics in The Big Smoke.

Call it Tammany Hall, Canadian-style.

I covered that city’s politics when Mayor Art Eggleton was in power. At the time, in the 1980s, the late, great Jack Layton was a progressive member of council. He would routinely fomate against the “power” of the “man”, not noticing that, somewhere, back in the far green belts of northern Etobicoke, Scarborough and Mississauga, the power of the “common man” was quietly forging “Ford Nation” from an unlikely consortium of disaffected white folks, and transplanted Jamaicans, Indians and eastern Europeans.

This is the city that Cousin John inherits.

And yet, he says this in his giddy acceptance speech: “Tonight, we we begin the work of building one Toronto – a prosperous, fair, respected and caring Toronto. Together, like never before, we begin building Toronto the Great.”

Meanwhile, Rob Ford still manages to nail it from his political hospice: “If you know anything about the Ford family, we never, ever, ever give up. . .I guarantee, in four more years, your going to see another example of the Ford family never, ever, ever giving up.”

I believe him. Does my Cousin John?

The ill-mannered, the crazy, the utter buffoons have always been able to purchase our attention (and our votes) cheaply. In the grips of their handlers, they become not the maniacal outliers of our society, but the mainstream managers of our democracy. They become, inexorably, the normative value to which we lend our faith, our hope, our dreams.

Toronto, the city of my beginnings, where I was raised for the first, formative years of my life – where I learned to read, calculate, think, emote, dress myself, tie my own shoes, eat my own supper, make my own friends, avoid bad guys, embrace good guys, know the difference between the dark and the light – give this cousin of mine a chance.

I can almost guarantee that this 60-year-old man will not list here and there, speaking poor West Indian patois, whilst sucking from a water-bong. I can almost guarantee that “cuz” will be as diligent and boring as the largest city in this great nation now needs in its leader.

But Canada, also know this: The Ford empire is far from done. It may be temporarily disenfranchised in The Big Smoke, but its ideological tendrils extend everywhere – to the big cities and small towns of the shield, plains, prairies and coasts of this nation.

It’s the small mind writ large by ambition and cynical determination.

Good luck, oh cousin of mine.

You’re going to need some.

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Oct 22 2014
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Humour

How to survive the coming recession (and live to tell the tale)

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Potatoes. There, I’ve said it. You’re welcome.

When things go sideways, as they inevitably do in capital and labour markets everywhere from London to Lower Jibib, you can’t go wrong by stockpiling spuds.

After all, money’s no good anymore. Gold, silver and other precious metals are in shockingly short supply. And guaranteed investment certificates are only just suitable for burning in derelict oil barrels.

But a good, old-fashioned Russet or Shepody is a friend for life, or at least for the duration of the next, great “downturn” which, if the pundits are right, should be arriving with typical punctuality any day now.

Here’s another hedge against the coming recession: toilet paper.

Laugh while you can monkey boys and girls, but a handy stash of T-P will stand you well when you can no longer afford to replace your threadbare Armani suits and little black faux-leather dresses with genuine cloth.

“The results from the tenth annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress contest are in,” writes Mary Gillen for the Huffington Post’s Bridal Guide. “Every ply is perfect on these runway-ready gowns. Contestants created stunning gowns, made from nothing but toilet paper, glue, tape and a needle and thread.”

In an economic meltdown, T-P is essential in at least one other way: Having reviewed the condition of your retirement savings plans, what else would you use to dry your tears?

Of course, in the words of Bob Dylan, “it’s not dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there.” So, you’re going to need candles. Lots of candles.

They’re not just excellent sources of illumination on cold, furnace-absent, winter nights; when the heat goes out, you can use them to warm your tootsies under one of those metal-lined, conductive car blankets (if, that is, you were smart enough to buy one when pennies were falling from heaven).

And, on the subject of right-sizing, what about those three cars parked in the outsized driveway of your McMansion? Do you really need them for quick trips to the local bodega when you run out of smokes (something else, by the way, you can no longer afford to replace)?

Why not repurpose them as temporary living quarters for your brood of adult children who have either lost their jobs or can no longer pay for their higher educations? You will have already licked the heating problem (see the aforementioned candles-and-car blanket solution).

Meanwhile, you might consider abandoning your 6,000 square-foot digs, altogether – perhaps, to the scores of squatters, who used to be neighbours, suddenly milling around the periphery of your property like the cast of The Walking Dead. Buy yourself a “tiny house”. They’re all the rage these days.

According to designboom.com, “The size of a home varies around the world. While some families live in one-room huts, others live in gigantic homes that seem to never end. Whatever the case, homes tend to grow with their owners’ prosperity.

“Since 1970, the size of the average new American home has grown by 50 per cent. This growth trend is similar in most western countries.

“However, for every trend there is a counter-trend. In the case of home size, more and more people are choosing to live in small homes. Most downsizes opt for more modest quarters, while some homeowners take this trend to a new level, choosing to live in tiny homes (and we mean tiny!). These tiny homes can be as small as 90 sq. ft. complete with bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and living quarters.”

Naturally, under such cramped conditions, you’ll want to spend a good deal of your time in the great outdoors (and, apart from the zombies you’re likely to encounter, as a true Canadian don’t you just relish this prospect in mid-February?). So, you’ll need to craft an absorbing outside activity or two to occupy your mind.

I return to first principles. Go digging for winter tubers. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a few potatoes you missed during the fall harvest. At this point, they won’t be much good for eating.

Still, for pure entertainment value, they can’t be beat as you chuck them at the limousines of the one per-centers who travel up and down your burning, frozen street, slaking their thirst for pity in the new age of disaster tourism.

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