POSTING # 3

POSTING # 3: Canada Geese Drop in on Virgil, Waiting for a Woman in Amman, The World’s Greatest Vodka, Falling into a Storm Sewer in Kuala Lumpur, Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)



Canada Geese Drop in on Virgil

Our home backs onto a large park, and this week a huge flock of Canada Geese used it as a rest stop on their way south.

Now, I happen to like Canada Geese but I know they have their detractors.

Golfers hate them---remember the story of a angry golfer who killed a goose with his putter after the goose had swallowed his ball.

Airline pilots fear them---a goose can smash the windshield or demolish an engine.

Farmers get angry about the damage to their crops.

And people strolling in parks complain about the amount of goose poop---it is certainly true that geese poop frequently and copiously.

I guess what I like about these geese is the skill, dedication and, yes, love they show in raising their young. I enjoy watching the parents take 6 or 8 gosling for a trip on the water or land. The male leads the way while the mother stays back watching for goslings who try to goof off. You can almost hear her saying, “For goodness sake Herbie and Freda, get back in line!”

And when the family is feeding, one of the parents always acts as a sentinel, head up watching for dogs, hawks and other predators.

Male geese can be aggressive in defending their young---just ask a dog that has been battered by a flurry of goose wings---and also very competitive over food and mating.

We were wondering how the males managed to forego all that aggressiveness and competitiveness and become cooperative with others during migration. A biologist friend told us that nature had found a way to turn the males into more cooperative beings. As migration time approaches, the male birds’ testes shrink and they produce less testosterone. After the migration south and back north is completed, the testes grow back to their original size, ready for another round of breeding.

It seems to me that there may be a Nobel Peace Prize for some scientist who can figure out how to use the Canada Goose technique to reduce human testosterone levels during perilous times of economic, military and political challenges.

Just a thought.


Waiting for a Woman in Amman

A driver had picked me up at my hotel in Amman, Jordan to take me to an Embassy reception. First, we had to pick up a Canadian official at another hotel.

The driver checked the lobby but there was no sign of the woman official. He settled back into the van.

“Women are always late”, he said.

“You better not let your wife hear you say that.”

“My wife! I have three wives.”

“Oh.”

As we waited for the official, he told me the story of his three wives. He married his first wife but after a number of years there were no children.

He decided to take a second wife but didn’t divorce his first wife. She stayed in their apartment and he found another apartment for the new wife. He said that, as his religion required, he divided his time equally between the two wives.

A few years passed but there were still no children. He decided to take a third wife, and rented yet another apartment for her. He said that it was easier for his Bedouin cousins who lived in the desert---when they took another wife, they just had to buy another tent.

It was a case of third time lucky and they had a boy and a girl who were now 14 and 12 and, as he said proudly, both healthy and bright. He had hoped that they would be able to go to college or university but he was worried that there wouldn’t be enough money for tuition. Costs of everything were rising and it was expensive to maintain three homes. He was a veteran and the government had a modest program to help the children of veterans. And if the children did well in their exams they might win full scholarships but the chances of that were not great---competition was very tough.

The driver shook his head, “I don’t know what is going to happen”.

Just then the official arrived---she had been on the phone to Canada---and we set off for the reception.

Our discussion was in 2001 and while the cost of living in Amman was rising then, it has soared since the start of the Iraq war in 2003. I often wonder what happened to the driver, his three wives and the two children, who would now be 21 and 19.




The World’s Greatest Vodka

Talking of receptions reminds me of the many official dinners my interpreter and I attended as we travelled across Russia during the planning for the creation of model employment offices. Our hosts were always enormously generous with their food---wonderful local and national dishes---and with their vodka.

Prior to the first (of many) toasts, a local official would always tell us that we were about to taste a special local vodka that was clearly the best vodka in Russia, and therefore, of course, in the world.

At one of the dinners, I playfully asked about the criteria that Russians used in judging different vodkas. The usual response was, “Well, you just know”, but I would persist that we had to be more scientific; we had to isolate the key criteria. The question provoked a lot of good natured bantering and my interpreter and I used the question at many of our dinners.

After lord knows how many dinners and how many toasts, here are the criteria that great vodka must meet:

1. Clarity. It should be as clear as fresh water.
2. Smell. There should be no smell.
3. Taste. It should have a clean taste, not oily.
4. It should go down the throat smoothly, not burn on the way down.
5. There should be no headache the next day.
6. It should affect the legs before the head----after many toasts one can still talk even though one can’t walk.
7. Finally, if the vodka is really good, and there is enough, one no longer needs an interpreter.

The criteria for vodka served us well, breaking the ice and getting conversations flowing.

There was another gambit we used to break the ice. Almost all the dinners involved a course of borscht---my favourite soup. After praising the soup, I would ask which was right: to put the sour cream in the bowl and pour the soup over it, or to add the sour cream after the soup is in the bowl. And then, the interpreter and I would sit back and listen to the proponents of each argue that the ‘right way, the only way’ is this or that. It was fun.



Falling into a Storm Sewer in Kuala Lumpur

I was in Kuala Lumpur in November 1991 as a consultant to assess the Malaysian Employment Service and prepare a leadership training course for senior managers.

I had arrived on Friday and was using the weekend to tour the city and get over jet lag before my meetings started on Monday. On Saturday, after breakfast, I talked with the hotel staff and they gave me maps and instructions on touring the old part of the city. They said the weather would be fine for touring, sunny and hot, but they warned me that it was the monsoon season and there was likely to be a heavy rain storm in the evening.

I toured the old city and had an early dinner so I could get back to the hotel before a storm hit. Either I miscalculated or the storm came early that Saturday. I had just stepped outside the restaurant when sheets of rain started to fall.

Cities in Malaysia have to have ways of carrying off the heavy rains. In that part of the old city, there was a deep ditch along the front of buildings with slabs of concrete across that created a sidewalk. There was an inch or two gap between the slabs so the water could drain into the ditch. It is an excellent system that serves two purposes, getting rid of the rain and providing a sidewalk for people. Excellent, that is, unless someone steals a slab.

I was walking along, rain running down my face, trying to find a taxi when I stepped onto a slab that wasn’t there. Down I went, hitting my chest against a slab that WAS there and knocking the air out of me. When I caught my breath, I was standing in the ditch with water running past my knees. Some people helped me clamber out and find a taxi.

Soon I was back in the Pan Pacific Hotel checking the damage. Apart from a nasty scrape on the chest and some sore ribs I seemed fine. I had a hot bath, wrote an email to Pat telling her I had fallen into a sewer but was fine and went to bed.

The next morning there was an email from Pat saying that she had told B and B guests at breakfast about my sewer adventure. One of the guests knew Kuala Lumpur well and said that criminals used the storm sewers to dispose of the bodies of their victims---the water flushed them out to sea. Just what Pat needed to hear!

My chest was feeling pretty sore so I called the Canadian High Commission and they recommended a clinic they used to examine potential immigrants to Canada. A kindly doctor checked me over, gave me a tetanus shot and some antibiotic cream for the scrape. She thought my ribs were fine but ordered a chest x-ray to be sure.

The clinic was not used to dealing with tall people. As I stood against the wall, the technician strained to get the x-ray camera up as high as it would go. Finally, she took the picture and I went back to wait for the doctor. After thirty minutes, the doctor called me in. She was laughing, “Look at this”, pointing to my x-ray on the illuminated panel. The image showed the bottom half of my chest.

“You are too tall”, she said.

She felt my ribs again and sent me on my way, saying that if the pain got worse, I should get back to her.

As it turned out, my ribs were fine but I took a lot of ribbing (sorry about that) from colleagues who loved to tell about the consultant who fell into a sewer.



Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Friends took their toddler to a fine restaurant in Yorkshire. He sat in his high chair, ate well and was charming with the waitress. He then asked if he could get down and walk around a bit. Our friends looked at each other and decided that he had been so good they would let him. The boy wandered down to the back of the restaurant, smiling at the diners and chatting with them. Our friends took a deep breath and relaxed.

Suddenly, there was a muffled but distinct little explosion that came from the toddler. He stopped, felt in his diaper and then shouted, “Dus gas Mommy”.




One of our grand-daughters had received a first bike and she and her dad went shopping for a helmet. The salesperson brought out several models and he and our son talked about size, cushioning, straps etc. Finally, as the salesperson bent down to take another helmet out of a box, our grand-daughter leaned over and whispered to him, “I think I need a red one”.


Another grand-daughter, about three at the time, was shopping with her dad. They got back to the car and he discovered that he had left the keys in the locked car. The little girl sensed there was something wrong, and then the light came on. She gave a world-weary shake of her head, “Not AGAIN, Daddy”


NEXT SUNDAY

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

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.