POSTING # 2

POSTING # 2: Whence Virgil; Impact of Economic Problems in Canada and Russia; Bed and Breakfast; Immigration



Whence the Name Virgil?


Friends keep asking how Virgil got its name. Was the town named after the Roman poet, or after some local resident named, say, Virgil Smickerson?


According to Ontario Place Names (Fifth Edition), the village was settled around 1783 and first called Four Mile Creek, and later Cross Roads. In the mid-1800s, the name was changed to Lawrenceville, in honour of George Lawrence, a prominent Methodist settler. In 1895, a post office was established and the name was changed to Virgil after the Roman poet.


The book does not explain why the name was changed to Virgil. What was wrong with Lawrenceville?


I had developed a fanciful theory that the minister of the Anglican Church was fed up with the homage being paid to a Methodist and, having studied the Latin poets at Oxford or Cambridge, promoted a name change that would both smite the non-conformists and honour the author of the Aeneid.


It seems that my theory (as with so many of my theories) does not hold water. The Post Office officials, who played a key role in naming places, had a policy against names that honoured local figures, so Lawrenceville had to go. There was already a nearby village called Homer, in honour of the Greek poet.


Ergo, Virgil.


I still think there is more to it than that and I’ll keep looking for a more entertaining explanation.




Some Local Impacts of the Boom and Bust



Two months ago scrap metal prices were at record levels and they tempted a local thug to steal 20 or so manhole covers--- including one from the middle of a street near our home--- and sell them to an unscrupulous dealer, who then, I suppose, sold them to China..


In the last few weeks, the scrap metal markets, along with other commodity markets, have of course crashed and this week a friend who works in the office of a legitimate scrap metal dealer in Hamilton had his pay cut by 20%. The boss was apologetic but said that there was so little demand for scrap metal that he either had to lay off some workers or cut salaries for everyone. While unhappy and worried, our friend was glad to keep his employee benefits.


It is amazing how quickly the financial and economic situation in Canada and the world has worsened, and how quickly the effects are felt in towns such as Virgil.




Bust in Russia


I had a problem with scrap metal during the 1995-97 period when I was living in Moscow and managing a technical aid project to improve Russia’s employment programs.


Russia was going through terrible economic problems as it tried to make the shift from a state-planned to a market economy. Some western economists convinced the Russian leadership that the most effective way to make the leap from one type of economy to another was ‘shock therapy’. The government agreed and abruptly closed or significantly reduced funding to state industries and slashed spending on health care, education and pensions. This ‘sink-or-swim’ approach resulted in huge increases in unemployment, suicides, alcoholism, sickness and crime, and the emergence of the Russian mafia. Eventually, there was also the creation of some new, legitimate businesses.


The Chinese, encouraged by other western economists, among them J.K. Galbraith, decided instead on a gradual approach. Historians will have to decide which economic prescription was more effective.


In 1996 I was trying to schedule a visit of two Canadian consultants to a city in western Siberia where the Canadians would help the local employment office convert itself into a model for other offices in the region. The local office was undergoing some major repairs and each time I scheduled the visit, I was told that there had been a delay in construction.



The consultants and I were getting frustrated at the last minute postponements. Finally, I was told on a Friday that all that remained was to lift a glass-paneled roof onto the building. A crane had just arrived and it would install the roof on Monday.


On Monday, someone phoned to say that thieves had broken into the crane during the weekend and stripped out all the copper wiring to sell as scrap metal. The building was eventually finished and the consultants were able to do their thing.


At the time, we were incredulous that people would steal copper wiring. It seemed so improbable----like, for example, someone stealing manhole covers.


Bed and Breakfast and the KGB



Although Pat visited me in Russia on a number of occasions, she couldn’t stay because of our bed and breakfast, Blue Spruces, in the Glebe in Ottawa. Many of the stories I will be telling in this blog will relate to our B&Bs (we operated Blue Spruces for 14 years, Denwycke House at Grimsby for 5 years, and Windows-on-the-Lake in Grimsby for another 5 years).


Soon after we started Blue Spruces something happened at a couple of other B&Bs in Ottawa that made us stop and think---do we really want to do this.


The husband at another B&B came home from work to an obviously upset wife. “Our new guest has been wandering around the house naked all day.”


“Naked”, he repeated.


“Naked as the day she was born. I’ve tried to reason with her but she won’t listen. She’s upstairs in the hall on the phone. You go up and tell her to get dressed.”


“Why me?” His wife gave him a fierce look, and he set off up the stairs.


Trying not to look at the woman he started, “Excuse me but you will have to….”


The woman waved her hand at him, “Can’t you see I’m on the phone!”


He waited for a few minutes but when it became clear that she wasn’t close to the end of her conversation he said, “I’m sorry but you really have to get dressed.”


She ignored him but he kept repeating his request and finally added, “Perhaps you would be happier at another B&B.”


She ended her call, banged down the phone and said that she wasn’t going to take this anymore and was going to leave.


The next night the host and hostess in a nearby B&B were awakened in the middle of the night by loudspeakers, flashing lights and when they looked out they found their house was surrounded by the Ottawa Police Swat Team in full gear. The husband stumbled into the hall and met the new guest, clothed this time, going down to open the door.


“What’s going on?” he asked.


“It’s OK”, she said, “I called the police to tell them that the KGB is after me.”


Now, in most cities a 911 call such as that would have resulted in a squad car making a discreet visit, but this was Ottawa and no one could forget September 5, 1945. On that day, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk in the Russian Embassy, defected with secret documents describing the spy network that Russia, the supposedly loyal World War II ally, had established in the United States, Canada and Britain.


Gouzenko was turned away by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on a couple of occasions but as Russian secret agents searched for him he finally found an officer who would listen. He was soon in a secret location sharing his documents with the RCMP, the FBI and MI5.

The poor woman was taken by the police to a local hospital.



Bed and Breakfast and the Forgotten Umbrella




The Ottawa B&B community spent a good bit of time talking about the ‘naked lady and the KGB’ episode and I guess we all decided that although we would have to be careful in checking new guests, something like this would not happen to us. And nothing as dramatic as that happened to us but there were some interesting times.


For example, a very nice couple spent a weekend with us and after they had checked out we noticed that the man had left an umbrella. This was not just a normal umbrella but an expensive one with an elaborate, hand-carved handle. We decided we should call them and ask if we could forward it to them (we always got a telephone number when people booked a room).


A woman answered and when we explained that they had left an umbrella at our B&B last weekend, the woman said, “But we weren’t at a B&B last weekend…” There was a significant and increasingly ominous silence and we quickly said that we must have made a mistake.


We’ve often wondered what happened to that marriage. But, we learned our lesson: store left-behind items and wait for a call. Don’t ever call the guest’s home.




Immigration and Infidelity



That reminds me of a story told by one of my trainers when I was studying in Ottawa to be an Immigration Foreign Service officer.


A group of Immigration officers liked to have their sandwich and coffee lunch on the 7th floor of an office building in downtown Ottawa. One day, one of them looked at the building across the street and shouted for the others to check out what was happening in the dentist’s office across the way. The dentist and his nurse were indulging in a little lunchtime misbehaviour, hugging, kissing, etc.


The dentist and nurse were at it again the next day. One of the immigration officers went across the street, found the name of the dentist and did a Yellow Book search for his phone number.



The following day, the immigration officers waited until the couple were at each other and then one of the officers dialled the dentist’s number. As the officers watched, the dentist separated himself, reached for the phone and muttered an out-of-breath “Hello”. The immigration officer intoned in a deep voice, “This is God. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” The dentist looked over at the Immigration building, stumbled across the room and pulled the drapes.



NEXT SUNDAY

Watch for a more stores from our universe in next Sunday’s Letter from Virgil.