"The Day the Falls Stood Still" by Cathy Marie Buchanan; A Computer Program to Match Workers and Jobs; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
"The Day the Falls Stood Still" by Cathy Marie Buchanan
The Niagara Peninsula is a small place.
At a party in Niagara Falls a couple of months ago we met a woman who told us that her daughter was about to have her first novel published. The proud mom said that the book---set in Niagara Falls during the early 1900s---was based loosely on the famous Hill family, a family of 'river people' who rescued people and recovered bodies from the Niagara River and who dared the rapids, the whirlpool and even the Falls. Click here for more information on the Hills and on the day the falls stood still.
Then a few weeks ago the daughter, Cathy Buchanan, spoke about the book at a meeting that Pat attended.
We have both read the book and can highly recommend it. It is well plotted, populated with vivid characters and full of wonderful descriptions of the Falls and the River.
We understand that it is being translated into a number of foreign languages. I am sure that movie producers are drooling over it---what could be better than a great story with the Falls as a backdrop.
A Computer Program to Match Workers and Jobs
The star at an international conference on Employment Services in the early 1970s was a studious-looking researcher in his mid-40s from an employment service in a Western country. He had recently received approval from his government to develop a computer system to match workers and jobs. As he wandered from booth to booth, delegates came up to him with congratulations and questions on how he had managed to pull off this coup.
He took all this attention with modesty but with obvious enjoyment.
The stars at these international conferences were usually hard-driving administrators, not researchers.
His story was fascinating.
Working in the research division of his employment services, he had tried to imagine how computers could be harnessed to take over some of the time-consuming, repetitive tasks performed in the local employment offices.
One of the most labour-intensive tasks in the local offices was to take job vacancies given to them by employers and go through hundreds or thousands of paper applications of unemployed workers in order to find qualified people to send to the employers.
Although they were still new in the late 1960s, computers had already shown that they could store and retrieve enormous amounts of data. The researcher asked himself whether it would be possible to store all the jobs in one data base, the jobs in another and then 'run' the two files against each other.
In this way, a job for an electrician could be matched with electricians in the worker file. Once the computer had done this, employees in the local office could contact the electricians and refer them to the electrical contractor.
The more the researcher studied the idea, the more it seemed to be worth a feasibility study. He prepared a proposal and included a cost of $150,000. He thought that the study could be conducted for about $75,000 but he had learned from experience that his superiors usually cut budget proposals in half.
His boss liked the idea very much. Computers were 'hot' and even if he didn't really understand how they worked, it would be good to be seen to be embracing this new technology. But, he said, it would be better to ask for $300,000 because the managers up the line would undoubtedly cut the proposed budget.
The next level also liked the idea but suggested boosting the budget to $750,000---again because of possible cuts up the line. The researcher reminded his boss that this was just a small feasibility study but his manager said that he should relax. It was clear that his idea was a winner, and he should start to think big.
Finally, the proposal reached the top public servant, the person who reported to a political appointee. He too liked the proposal but being concerned about recent cost-cutting decisions from the political level doubled the budget to $1,500,000.
To the surprise of the public servants, the politicians liked the idea. Unemployment was high at the time and they wanted to be seen to be doing something to fight it.
But the politicians didn't like the idea of a 'feasibility study'---that wouldn't impress voters. This sounded like a simple task---matching jobs and workers--and everyone knew about the awesome power of computers. Why not, the politicians argued, go directly to the development and installation of a matching system in all local offices?
The researcher pleaded for a feasibility study to be sure that the idea worked but was overruled. Instead he was told that he would head up an implementation team with a goal of 'making it happen'. When asked how much money it would take, he consulted some computer companies and after some back-of-the envelope calculations came up with an estimate of $70 million for all the computers and software.
That estimate was included in the organization's annual budget and supporting legislation was passed requiring all regions of the employment service to have the new system installed and operating in three years.
It was at that point that I met the researcher at the international conference. It was no wonder that delegates from the employment services in other countries wanted to find out how he had done it. None of us had ever heard of an idea getting such a rapid and generous reception.
I ran into the researcher again two years later at another conference. What a change! He was wandering alone from booth to booth, his head down looking tired and dejected.
One of his colleagues told me that contracts had been given, people hired, programs written, and computers purchased but it hadn't been possible to get the matching to work effectively. The program had been scrapped, the researcher was back doing research, his career in shreds.
The lesson was that computers were not yet ready to do the complex assessments that a skilled employment official could make about which worker was likely to meet the needs of a particular job vacancy.
Matching workers and jobs is tough. For example, take electricians. Despite the fact that they all have to pass competency exams, they are not all the same. Some prefer to work in residential, others in industrial fields. Among those in residential, some prefer to work in new homes, others in existing homes. Some belong to unions, others don't. Some are willing to travel considerable distances to work, others are not. And on and on.
Matching of workers and jobs had to wait for the development of more sophisticated soft and hard technologies. Now, some 40 years later, and after the investment of millions of dollars by employment services around the world, systems such as the Canada Job Bank are pretty good. They produce reasonable matches at low cost but no one would claim that they produce the kind of matches that the enthusiastic proponents thought would be possible back in the early 1970s.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The recent stories about the Ontario Government's eHealth computer program made me recall the above story. Like job matching, the computerization of health records makes a lot of sense. I suspect, however, that the actual computerization of health records is proving to be horrendously complex.
When one adds in the temptations that always accompany large budgets and a tight time frame for completion, it is no wonder there are problems with eHealth.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
I have written in a number of postings about my fascination with Canada Geese.
This summer I have watched as a flock of 30 or 40 geese visits the park behind our house. They arrive, stay for a few days and then take off.
Perhaps they are different geese, but I like to think that they are the same geese---Virgil's 2009 flock.
This week the town decided to put in a meandering, six-foot-wide asphalt path in the park, a path that makes it easier for moms to push their strollers to a well-equipped play area with slides, swings and so on.
The geese flew back just after the path was completed. As I watched they landed on either side of the path---no one landed on the path. They waddled (they are getting quite plump, ready for the trip south) along either side of the walk, studying it.
They may have been trying to figure out the purpose of the path, or more realistically, trying to figure out whether it was dangerous or not.
No one walked on it.
Finally, a particularly large goose, perhaps the patriarch, stepped onto the walk and walked gingerly back and forth across it and then walked its full length.
Having accomplished that, he stood in the middle of the walk and stretched his neck and head up in the sentinel-posture, watching for dogs or other threats while the rest of the flock fed on the grass.
At one point, another goose started to climb onto the path but the sentinel lunged at him with wings flapping. The goose backed off.
Was the patriarch playing 'I'm King of the Castle', or was he worried that the path posed some threat that only he was wise enough to withstand?
I don't know.
The geese have left us once again.
I am waiting to see whether when they return they will wander across and along the path, or will they still avoid it.
Interesting critters!
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See you next Sunday for Posting #44 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
POSTING #42
Noise on Thanksgiving Day; Aeroflot Stories; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Noise on Thanksgiving Day
Pat and I were having a quiet breakfast on Thanksgiving Day when a noise started in the distance. We paid attention, not because the sound was loud---it wasn't--- but because it was strange.
It sounded a little like an earth moving machine, but not exactly.
And it was a holiday---there wouldn't be any construction going on, unless emergency repairs had to be made to, say, a broken water main.
We listened and speculated, and speculated.
Finally, Pat, fed up with all this unproductive speculation jumped in the car in her dressing gown to find the source of the noise.
She came back in a few minutes to say that the noise was coming from the windmill-like machine in a nearby vineyard. The long blade was rotating at enormous speed causing part of the noise, and the rest was coming from some kind of engine that was driving the blade.
We found an article that explains everything one could ever want to know about wind machines (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/windmach_info.htm
). Apparently wind machines are used at sensitive times in the spring and fall when frost could damage the growth of vines. They are also used in the winter when the temperature threatens to drop to a point where the dormant plants could be damaged.
It seems that the ground temperature was getting close to freezing on Thanksgiving Day and the wind machine started, automatically, to create a circulation of air that would pull the cold air from the ground and replace it with warmer air from above.
By the time we had finished breakfast the sun was beaming down and the wind machine had shut itself off.
We have been here for about a year and a half and it is the first time we have heard the wind machine.
Aeroflot Stories
I have been planning for some time to tell some stories about flying across Russia on Aeroflot when I was working there from 1995 to 1997.
I intended to start with a disclaimer that things had no doubt improved in the intervening period---and then I came across an article about a drunk Aeroflot pilot.
In February this year, passengers who had boarded a Moscow-New York flight rebelled when they realized from his slurred pre-flight announcements that the captain was either drunk or seriously ill.
It turned out he was drunk.
The initial reaction of Aeroflot when a passenger called the airport office on his cell phone was that a drunk pilot was 'no big deal'. In the end, the pilot was poured off the plane and a new cockpit crew took over. If you haven't seen an article about it, and you need a good laugh, click here .
My first trips from Moscow to the hinterland were by train and I had learned how to cope with Russian trains, and how to brief the incoming Canadian consultants about them.
Aeroflot was a different matter. I had heard tales from Embassy staff and other expatriates about passengers being jammed in with some having to stand during flights. And about goats, sheep and chickens being allowed in the cabin.
Some serious people told me they would never fly Aeroflot, that it was just too risky.
My first Aeroflot flight was on a Tupolev 134, a workhorse used for short flights. It had two engines mounted just in front of the tail and was similar in size and range to the DC9. We boarded from the tarmac with the Aeroflot attendant dividing up the passengers, so many to the front of the plane, so many to the back. I was told that if they got too many people in the back the plane could tip backwards, given the weight of the engines. The goal was to distribute the weight.
This business of a tipping aircraft bothered me at first until I realized that Western airlines always boarded from the front, presumably for the same reason---but no one talks about the reason.
On the plane, my first impressions were that the cabin was a bit more cramped than a DC9 and that it needed a good paint job. The seats were flimsy, some weren't too well anchored to the floor and the seat belts were frayed. Bags were stowed overhead in open racks.
The men and women of the cabin crew were dressed in dowdy uniforms and their main role seemed to be to settle arguments about seating or about space for stowing carry-on luggage. There was no lecture about safety belts, emergency exits and all that.
The staff exuded the off-hand, impersonal attitude one would encounter in a Moscow bread shop or the Gum Department store. 'You are lucky that I have agreed to serve you---just don't push it.'
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Someone told me that Aeroflot's pilots had all started their flying careers as fighter pilots for the Russian air force. That made sense, I thought, as I was thrust back in my seat as the plane took off in the steepest climb I had ever experienced.
When we leveled off the flight was smooth. A Russian friend told me that most of the Aeroflot planes didn't have automatic pilots so the pilots actually flew the planes, moment by moment.
This was presented as an advantage.
In Western planes with auto pilots, the mechanism was programmed to adjust only after a significant deviation from the desired flight plan. This meant that there were abrupt changes in speed, direction or elevation, changes that the passengers could feel.
There were bumpy periods when we were flying through bad weather but generally I would give Aeroflot high marks for smooth flights.
The landings were as steep as the take offs, sort of like a Peregrine Falcon spotting a plump rabbit.
The touch downs were fine---the pilots obviously knew what they were doing.
After the plane had come to a stop, there wasn't the usual Western jostling to get off the plane. The passengers waited quietly in their seats until the cockpit crew strode down the aisle and disembarked.
And then the jostling---more like a rugby scrum---started!
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
On short flights, there was no meal service and the passengers generally carried their own food and drinks. My interpreter and I would usually buy some cheese and rolls at the airport but if our Russian liaison officer was coming along we didn't bother. Her mother sent her off with bags of tasty fried chicken, salads, cheese, bread, along with wine or beer and some chocolates. The first time, I wondered if this was permitted but I looked around and everyone was digging into food bags.
On a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok (in a longer-range Ilyushin aircraft) meals were offered. Yuri, my interpreter, poked at the lunch-time chicken, "Look, hairy chicken legs."
It was true that the chicken had not been singed very well.
We peeled off the skin and enjoyed the meat.
Yuri looked around and found that everyone had received chicken legs. He wondered what had happened to the breasts.
A few hours later we found out.
Hairy chicken breasts for dinner.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Aeroflot was not immune to the economic and financial crisis in Russia during the 1995-1997 period.
We had flown to Ulan-Ude, near Lake Baikal (the world's deepest, oldest and most voluminous fresh water lake), to inspect some employment offices. When we arrived at the airport for our return flight we were told that the airport authorities weren't prepared to fuel the jet because Aeroflot owed them too much money. We were lucky that a senior official of the Russian Federal Employment Service had come with us (he had never seen Lake Baikal).
It took phone calls to Moscow and extended negotiations with the local governor before the airport would fuel the jet.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Looking back, flights on Aeroflot were not a problem. Nothing happened that scared me as much as a flight 20 years earlier on an European airline's 737 from Geneva to Frankfurt. I was sitting next to a friend, a retired Canadian Air Force pilot who had flown Prime Minister John Diefenbaker around the world. We were sitting well back on the right side of the aircraft with a good view of the right wing.
It was a blustery night with rain and cross-winds.
We were about 10 feet above the runway when my friend suddenly exploded, "That idiot has his flaps down too far!"
A moment later the plane tilted to the right and the wing came within a foot or two of the ground. I looked at my friend and his forehead was covered with sweat.
My hands still get wet when I think of it.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
And I never got hurt on Aeroflot.
Unlike on an European airline (not the one with the 'flap' problems).
I was flying from Moscow to London on my way home for a holiday. We were on our ascent out of Moscow when a piece of the bulk head separating non-smokers from smokers swung loose and hit me on the forehead.
I was reading at the time and for a while after the stars had cleared I didn't know where I was.
After checking me over at their clinic at Heathrow, the airline said I could continue to Ottawa but should see a doctor when I arrived.
The Ottawa Civic Hospital checked me over with a Cat Scan and declared me well. (I told the doctor that a hockey coach once told me when I got hit on the head, "If they wanted to hurt you Hunter, they wouldn't have hit you on the head.")
After some prompting, the airline gave a generous gift to the Civic that more than covered the cost of my examination.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
In summary, the Canadian consultants and I logged a lot of miles on Aeroflot. The airline was not great on comfort or service but it always got us there and back in one piece.
Would I fly Aeroflot again---even with the story about the drunken pilot?
Sure.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Eating while travelling reminds me of car trips we used to take with the kids from Ottawa to Aurora and Arthur to visit our parents.
It was always a challenge to find things to feed them that weren't too salty or too sweet.
Once there was not much in the fridge but I spotted a turnip. I have always liked to eat raw turnip so I cut up some turnip sticks for the trip.
At first the kids treated the turnip with disgust but as the trip dragged on first one and then another tried the sticks. And they ate them.
After that we usually travelled with turnip sticks.
Our daughter once served turnip sticks during a lecture on nutrition and told the clients about our family trips. The clients' first reaction was, 'What kind of parents did you have?'
Then, they tried the sticks. I understand they didn't necessarily rave about them, but they agreed they tasted better than they thought they would.
A bit of rural Ontario wisdom from my mother: the sweetest turnips are those dug up after a good frost.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #43 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
Noise on Thanksgiving Day
Pat and I were having a quiet breakfast on Thanksgiving Day when a noise started in the distance. We paid attention, not because the sound was loud---it wasn't--- but because it was strange.
It sounded a little like an earth moving machine, but not exactly.
And it was a holiday---there wouldn't be any construction going on, unless emergency repairs had to be made to, say, a broken water main.
We listened and speculated, and speculated.
Finally, Pat, fed up with all this unproductive speculation jumped in the car in her dressing gown to find the source of the noise.
She came back in a few minutes to say that the noise was coming from the windmill-like machine in a nearby vineyard. The long blade was rotating at enormous speed causing part of the noise, and the rest was coming from some kind of engine that was driving the blade.
We found an article that explains everything one could ever want to know about wind machines (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/windmach_info.htm
). Apparently wind machines are used at sensitive times in the spring and fall when frost could damage the growth of vines. They are also used in the winter when the temperature threatens to drop to a point where the dormant plants could be damaged.
It seems that the ground temperature was getting close to freezing on Thanksgiving Day and the wind machine started, automatically, to create a circulation of air that would pull the cold air from the ground and replace it with warmer air from above.
By the time we had finished breakfast the sun was beaming down and the wind machine had shut itself off.
We have been here for about a year and a half and it is the first time we have heard the wind machine.
Aeroflot Stories
I have been planning for some time to tell some stories about flying across Russia on Aeroflot when I was working there from 1995 to 1997.
I intended to start with a disclaimer that things had no doubt improved in the intervening period---and then I came across an article about a drunk Aeroflot pilot.
In February this year, passengers who had boarded a Moscow-New York flight rebelled when they realized from his slurred pre-flight announcements that the captain was either drunk or seriously ill.
It turned out he was drunk.
The initial reaction of Aeroflot when a passenger called the airport office on his cell phone was that a drunk pilot was 'no big deal'. In the end, the pilot was poured off the plane and a new cockpit crew took over. If you haven't seen an article about it, and you need a good laugh, click here .
My first trips from Moscow to the hinterland were by train and I had learned how to cope with Russian trains, and how to brief the incoming Canadian consultants about them.
Aeroflot was a different matter. I had heard tales from Embassy staff and other expatriates about passengers being jammed in with some having to stand during flights. And about goats, sheep and chickens being allowed in the cabin.
Some serious people told me they would never fly Aeroflot, that it was just too risky.
My first Aeroflot flight was on a Tupolev 134, a workhorse used for short flights. It had two engines mounted just in front of the tail and was similar in size and range to the DC9. We boarded from the tarmac with the Aeroflot attendant dividing up the passengers, so many to the front of the plane, so many to the back. I was told that if they got too many people in the back the plane could tip backwards, given the weight of the engines. The goal was to distribute the weight.
This business of a tipping aircraft bothered me at first until I realized that Western airlines always boarded from the front, presumably for the same reason---but no one talks about the reason.
On the plane, my first impressions were that the cabin was a bit more cramped than a DC9 and that it needed a good paint job. The seats were flimsy, some weren't too well anchored to the floor and the seat belts were frayed. Bags were stowed overhead in open racks.
The men and women of the cabin crew were dressed in dowdy uniforms and their main role seemed to be to settle arguments about seating or about space for stowing carry-on luggage. There was no lecture about safety belts, emergency exits and all that.
The staff exuded the off-hand, impersonal attitude one would encounter in a Moscow bread shop or the Gum Department store. 'You are lucky that I have agreed to serve you---just don't push it.'
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Someone told me that Aeroflot's pilots had all started their flying careers as fighter pilots for the Russian air force. That made sense, I thought, as I was thrust back in my seat as the plane took off in the steepest climb I had ever experienced.
When we leveled off the flight was smooth. A Russian friend told me that most of the Aeroflot planes didn't have automatic pilots so the pilots actually flew the planes, moment by moment.
This was presented as an advantage.
In Western planes with auto pilots, the mechanism was programmed to adjust only after a significant deviation from the desired flight plan. This meant that there were abrupt changes in speed, direction or elevation, changes that the passengers could feel.
There were bumpy periods when we were flying through bad weather but generally I would give Aeroflot high marks for smooth flights.
The landings were as steep as the take offs, sort of like a Peregrine Falcon spotting a plump rabbit.
The touch downs were fine---the pilots obviously knew what they were doing.
After the plane had come to a stop, there wasn't the usual Western jostling to get off the plane. The passengers waited quietly in their seats until the cockpit crew strode down the aisle and disembarked.
And then the jostling---more like a rugby scrum---started!
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
On short flights, there was no meal service and the passengers generally carried their own food and drinks. My interpreter and I would usually buy some cheese and rolls at the airport but if our Russian liaison officer was coming along we didn't bother. Her mother sent her off with bags of tasty fried chicken, salads, cheese, bread, along with wine or beer and some chocolates. The first time, I wondered if this was permitted but I looked around and everyone was digging into food bags.
On a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok (in a longer-range Ilyushin aircraft) meals were offered. Yuri, my interpreter, poked at the lunch-time chicken, "Look, hairy chicken legs."
It was true that the chicken had not been singed very well.
We peeled off the skin and enjoyed the meat.
Yuri looked around and found that everyone had received chicken legs. He wondered what had happened to the breasts.
A few hours later we found out.
Hairy chicken breasts for dinner.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Aeroflot was not immune to the economic and financial crisis in Russia during the 1995-1997 period.
We had flown to Ulan-Ude, near Lake Baikal (the world's deepest, oldest and most voluminous fresh water lake), to inspect some employment offices. When we arrived at the airport for our return flight we were told that the airport authorities weren't prepared to fuel the jet because Aeroflot owed them too much money. We were lucky that a senior official of the Russian Federal Employment Service had come with us (he had never seen Lake Baikal).
It took phone calls to Moscow and extended negotiations with the local governor before the airport would fuel the jet.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Looking back, flights on Aeroflot were not a problem. Nothing happened that scared me as much as a flight 20 years earlier on an European airline's 737 from Geneva to Frankfurt. I was sitting next to a friend, a retired Canadian Air Force pilot who had flown Prime Minister John Diefenbaker around the world. We were sitting well back on the right side of the aircraft with a good view of the right wing.
It was a blustery night with rain and cross-winds.
We were about 10 feet above the runway when my friend suddenly exploded, "That idiot has his flaps down too far!"
A moment later the plane tilted to the right and the wing came within a foot or two of the ground. I looked at my friend and his forehead was covered with sweat.
My hands still get wet when I think of it.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
And I never got hurt on Aeroflot.
Unlike on an European airline (not the one with the 'flap' problems).
I was flying from Moscow to London on my way home for a holiday. We were on our ascent out of Moscow when a piece of the bulk head separating non-smokers from smokers swung loose and hit me on the forehead.
I was reading at the time and for a while after the stars had cleared I didn't know where I was.
After checking me over at their clinic at Heathrow, the airline said I could continue to Ottawa but should see a doctor when I arrived.
The Ottawa Civic Hospital checked me over with a Cat Scan and declared me well. (I told the doctor that a hockey coach once told me when I got hit on the head, "If they wanted to hurt you Hunter, they wouldn't have hit you on the head.")
After some prompting, the airline gave a generous gift to the Civic that more than covered the cost of my examination.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
In summary, the Canadian consultants and I logged a lot of miles on Aeroflot. The airline was not great on comfort or service but it always got us there and back in one piece.
Would I fly Aeroflot again---even with the story about the drunken pilot?
Sure.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Eating while travelling reminds me of car trips we used to take with the kids from Ottawa to Aurora and Arthur to visit our parents.
It was always a challenge to find things to feed them that weren't too salty or too sweet.
Once there was not much in the fridge but I spotted a turnip. I have always liked to eat raw turnip so I cut up some turnip sticks for the trip.
At first the kids treated the turnip with disgust but as the trip dragged on first one and then another tried the sticks. And they ate them.
After that we usually travelled with turnip sticks.
Our daughter once served turnip sticks during a lecture on nutrition and told the clients about our family trips. The clients' first reaction was, 'What kind of parents did you have?'
Then, they tried the sticks. I understand they didn't necessarily rave about them, but they agreed they tasted better than they thought they would.
A bit of rural Ontario wisdom from my mother: the sweetest turnips are those dug up after a good frost.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #43 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
POSTING #41
Apology; Mowing and Blowing; International Conference in Helsinki in 1991; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Apology
I am sorry that this week's posting is a few days late.
Pat and I have been totally preoccupied with the arrival of our fourth grandchild---a handsome young fellow born on Saturday, October 10th. Mom, son and dad are all in super shape.
The grandparents are pooped.
Mowing and Blowing
For the last 10 years or so, we have had a contractor mow our grass and snowblow our driveway. At first it was because we were busy with 'bed and breakfasting' and consulting.
Now it's just laziness.
This is the first year that the contractor has mowed the lawn each and every week since spring. In other years, there was always a dormant period somewhere in July or August when it was just too hot for the grass to grow.
Not this year!
It has been a great season for our current contractor---Paul---who does a first class job looking after both the grass and the snow.
In a sense---from his point of view---this was payback for a lousy winter. He only had to clean our driveway three times all last winter. Hard to keep a business going with the revenue from three visits.
Looking ahead, we don't have any squirrels in our part of Virgil so we can't check their nut-storing activities or the thickness of their fur to give us a feel for the kind of winter that lies ahead.
We suspect, however, that the law of averages will take over and that Paul will like this winter more than we do.
International Conference in Helsinki in 1991
In last week's posting, #40, October 4, 2009, I talked about a trip to East Berlin in 1974 when the Wall was still in place, and about my amazement that someone raised in East Germany---Angela Merkel---had just been re-elected as Chancellor of the reunited Germany.
The success of the liberated nations of Central and Eastern Europe has been equally impressive. There were initial problems in most of the countries and there have been times when some of them seemed in danger of slipping back into dictatorship---this time not a dictatorship imposed by a foreign power but one controlled by a national group. But things have worked out pretty well.
The European Union has been enormously helpful. And international agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have also provided help at critical times.
In September 1991, I was in Helsinki presenting a paper at a conference organized by the OECD for officials from Central and Eastern European nations who, after the collapse of the USSR, were trying to create market economies. A number of experts from Western countries presented papers on a variety of subject dealing with the transfer from a state-controlled to a market economy.
My paper dealt with work we had been doing in Canada to increase the responsiveness of our public employment service to the needs of its clients. Under the communist philosophy that governed the USSR, there could not, by definition, be unemployment. There was no need, therefore, to have a public employment service to help workers find jobs or to pay unemployment insurance benefits.
Now that they were putting in place market economies---in which there would always be at least some unemployment---the nations were interested in how to create efficient, effective and responsive public employment services. The need was heightened by the astronomical levels of unemployment each faced at they made the transition to a market economy.
Here are some stories about the attitudes and ideas that circulated during the conference.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The Hungarian delegates were impressive and given the nature of their questions it seemed that Hungary was further along than most of the nations in making the transition to a market economy.
After one of the early papers (not mine) that went into great and glowing detail about the successes of a certain western nation's economic initiatives, I noticed that the Hungarians were a bit restless.
When the question period came, the head of the Hungarian delegation led off---with some gentle irony---saying that it was always very interesting to hear about the successes of other countries. It would however, he suggested, be even more interesting and helpful if the experts could describe the mistakes they had made. Sometimes, the Hungarian said, one could learn more about what hadn't worked. In that way, the newly independent nations could avoid making the same mistakes.
To give him credit, the expert appeared a bit chastened, and he managed to come up with a few examples of things that hadn't worked.
This seemed to me to mark a turning point in the conference. After that exchange, the presentations were less self-laudatory, and therefore more helpful to the nations who were struggling to find answers to some terribly challenging problems.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
One of the delegates from a nation that was clearly not as advanced as Hungary, responded to one of the papers with a speech that became angrier and angrier. Speaking through an interpreter, he protested that the Western nations were not being helpful enough, they were trying to keep the ex-USSR nations poor so they could exploit them. For example, he said, the Western nations were not prepared to share the manual for democracy.
When I heard this statement, I thought that I hadn't heard correctly or that the interpreter had got his comments wrong.
But the speaker went on to say that western officials he had talked to had even denied that a manual existed but everyone knew that there had to be a manual for democracy.
The person chairing the session cut in and said that he would meet with the speaker during lunch and discuss his concerns.
Afterwards, I realized that it wasn't too surprising that people who had grown up in a political and economic system in which everything was controlled by the centre might think that there had to be a manual for democracy.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
An official from the former East Germany told about the problems he and his colleagues were having in introducing democratic values.
He said that a city in what had been East Germany had its first free election for a mayor since before the Nazi time. (There had been 'elections' during the USSR times but the winner was pre-determined.) Some time after the election, some citizens were unhappy with the behavior of the new mayor. A delegation went to the head of the state in which the city was located and demanded that the head remove the mayor. The head responded that this was now a democracy and therefore he couldn't remove the mayor. The people would have to remove him in the next election.
No, the people protested, you don't understand. He has misbehaved and you have a duty to remove him.
The people left, grumbling that this new democracy wasn't worth much if mayors couldn't be removed by the boss of the state.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
There was a small delegation from Russia, which was now just another country that was trying to make the transition to a market economy.
I noticed that the delegations from the other countries shunned the Russians---perhaps understandably. The Russians, for their part, kept a low profile in the conference, asking few questions.
At the end of one day's discussions, I went for a walk along a pretty Helsinki lake while I waited for that evening's dinner.
I ran into the head of the Russian delegation, who was also taking a pre-dinner walk, and stopped to say hello. He was a tall, slender person with gray hair and a scholarly air.
His English was excellent and we walked on together chatting about ourselves and the conference. He had been a senior planner in the Kremlin under the USSR and he said it was hard for him and his colleagues to grasp (and, I suppose, to accept) the concepts of a market economy.
He saw value in some of the new concepts but thought that there was still a place for some central planning. He pointed to Japan and France, two countries in which the national government played an active role in giving guidance and maintaining control over major economic issues.
In time, he suggested, the newly independent countries would find the value of some central planning---that an economy could not be left totally to the operation of the market.
I imagine that after the catastrophic economic and financial events of the last year, he may be saying to himself, "I tried to tell them".
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I didn't imagine at that time that in four years I would be living in Moscow, working on a project to improve the Russian employment service.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
In the summer of 1979 we went as a family to Europe. We started with a week in Britain and the two boys (16 and 14) and our daughter (9) adjusted well to the tourist life. We ate from time to time in department store cafeterias and the children learned to grab trays and rush ahead to select their food without waiting for Pat and me.
Then we took the ferry to The Netherlands and found a department store cafeteria in Amsterdam. As usual the children rushed ahead with their trays and examined the pans of sausages, mashed potatoes, and so on.
The clerk behind the counter asked them what they wanted---in Dutch. The three kids looked at him in horror, and then scooted back behind us.
It was wonderful to watch the expression on their faces.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #42 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
Apology
I am sorry that this week's posting is a few days late.
Pat and I have been totally preoccupied with the arrival of our fourth grandchild---a handsome young fellow born on Saturday, October 10th. Mom, son and dad are all in super shape.
The grandparents are pooped.
Mowing and Blowing
For the last 10 years or so, we have had a contractor mow our grass and snowblow our driveway. At first it was because we were busy with 'bed and breakfasting' and consulting.
Now it's just laziness.
This is the first year that the contractor has mowed the lawn each and every week since spring. In other years, there was always a dormant period somewhere in July or August when it was just too hot for the grass to grow.
Not this year!
It has been a great season for our current contractor---Paul---who does a first class job looking after both the grass and the snow.
In a sense---from his point of view---this was payback for a lousy winter. He only had to clean our driveway three times all last winter. Hard to keep a business going with the revenue from three visits.
Looking ahead, we don't have any squirrels in our part of Virgil so we can't check their nut-storing activities or the thickness of their fur to give us a feel for the kind of winter that lies ahead.
We suspect, however, that the law of averages will take over and that Paul will like this winter more than we do.
International Conference in Helsinki in 1991
In last week's posting, #40, October 4, 2009, I talked about a trip to East Berlin in 1974 when the Wall was still in place, and about my amazement that someone raised in East Germany---Angela Merkel---had just been re-elected as Chancellor of the reunited Germany.
The success of the liberated nations of Central and Eastern Europe has been equally impressive. There were initial problems in most of the countries and there have been times when some of them seemed in danger of slipping back into dictatorship---this time not a dictatorship imposed by a foreign power but one controlled by a national group. But things have worked out pretty well.
The European Union has been enormously helpful. And international agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have also provided help at critical times.
In September 1991, I was in Helsinki presenting a paper at a conference organized by the OECD for officials from Central and Eastern European nations who, after the collapse of the USSR, were trying to create market economies. A number of experts from Western countries presented papers on a variety of subject dealing with the transfer from a state-controlled to a market economy.
My paper dealt with work we had been doing in Canada to increase the responsiveness of our public employment service to the needs of its clients. Under the communist philosophy that governed the USSR, there could not, by definition, be unemployment. There was no need, therefore, to have a public employment service to help workers find jobs or to pay unemployment insurance benefits.
Now that they were putting in place market economies---in which there would always be at least some unemployment---the nations were interested in how to create efficient, effective and responsive public employment services. The need was heightened by the astronomical levels of unemployment each faced at they made the transition to a market economy.
Here are some stories about the attitudes and ideas that circulated during the conference.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The Hungarian delegates were impressive and given the nature of their questions it seemed that Hungary was further along than most of the nations in making the transition to a market economy.
After one of the early papers (not mine) that went into great and glowing detail about the successes of a certain western nation's economic initiatives, I noticed that the Hungarians were a bit restless.
When the question period came, the head of the Hungarian delegation led off---with some gentle irony---saying that it was always very interesting to hear about the successes of other countries. It would however, he suggested, be even more interesting and helpful if the experts could describe the mistakes they had made. Sometimes, the Hungarian said, one could learn more about what hadn't worked. In that way, the newly independent nations could avoid making the same mistakes.
To give him credit, the expert appeared a bit chastened, and he managed to come up with a few examples of things that hadn't worked.
This seemed to me to mark a turning point in the conference. After that exchange, the presentations were less self-laudatory, and therefore more helpful to the nations who were struggling to find answers to some terribly challenging problems.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
One of the delegates from a nation that was clearly not as advanced as Hungary, responded to one of the papers with a speech that became angrier and angrier. Speaking through an interpreter, he protested that the Western nations were not being helpful enough, they were trying to keep the ex-USSR nations poor so they could exploit them. For example, he said, the Western nations were not prepared to share the manual for democracy.
When I heard this statement, I thought that I hadn't heard correctly or that the interpreter had got his comments wrong.
But the speaker went on to say that western officials he had talked to had even denied that a manual existed but everyone knew that there had to be a manual for democracy.
The person chairing the session cut in and said that he would meet with the speaker during lunch and discuss his concerns.
Afterwards, I realized that it wasn't too surprising that people who had grown up in a political and economic system in which everything was controlled by the centre might think that there had to be a manual for democracy.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
An official from the former East Germany told about the problems he and his colleagues were having in introducing democratic values.
He said that a city in what had been East Germany had its first free election for a mayor since before the Nazi time. (There had been 'elections' during the USSR times but the winner was pre-determined.) Some time after the election, some citizens were unhappy with the behavior of the new mayor. A delegation went to the head of the state in which the city was located and demanded that the head remove the mayor. The head responded that this was now a democracy and therefore he couldn't remove the mayor. The people would have to remove him in the next election.
No, the people protested, you don't understand. He has misbehaved and you have a duty to remove him.
The people left, grumbling that this new democracy wasn't worth much if mayors couldn't be removed by the boss of the state.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
There was a small delegation from Russia, which was now just another country that was trying to make the transition to a market economy.
I noticed that the delegations from the other countries shunned the Russians---perhaps understandably. The Russians, for their part, kept a low profile in the conference, asking few questions.
At the end of one day's discussions, I went for a walk along a pretty Helsinki lake while I waited for that evening's dinner.
I ran into the head of the Russian delegation, who was also taking a pre-dinner walk, and stopped to say hello. He was a tall, slender person with gray hair and a scholarly air.
His English was excellent and we walked on together chatting about ourselves and the conference. He had been a senior planner in the Kremlin under the USSR and he said it was hard for him and his colleagues to grasp (and, I suppose, to accept) the concepts of a market economy.
He saw value in some of the new concepts but thought that there was still a place for some central planning. He pointed to Japan and France, two countries in which the national government played an active role in giving guidance and maintaining control over major economic issues.
In time, he suggested, the newly independent countries would find the value of some central planning---that an economy could not be left totally to the operation of the market.
I imagine that after the catastrophic economic and financial events of the last year, he may be saying to himself, "I tried to tell them".
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I didn't imagine at that time that in four years I would be living in Moscow, working on a project to improve the Russian employment service.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
In the summer of 1979 we went as a family to Europe. We started with a week in Britain and the two boys (16 and 14) and our daughter (9) adjusted well to the tourist life. We ate from time to time in department store cafeterias and the children learned to grab trays and rush ahead to select their food without waiting for Pat and me.
Then we took the ferry to The Netherlands and found a department store cafeteria in Amsterdam. As usual the children rushed ahead with their trays and examined the pans of sausages, mashed potatoes, and so on.
The clerk behind the counter asked them what they wanted---in Dutch. The three kids looked at him in horror, and then scooted back behind us.
It was wonderful to watch the expression on their faces.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #42 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
POSTING #40
Daily Go Buses Come to Niagara; Check Point Charlie; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Daily Go Buses Come to Niagara
We feel closer to Toronto now that there is a weekday train/bus link with 9 trips each way between here and the big city.
The trip is about 2 hours each way so that it is entirely feasible to go to Toronto in the morning, see the Art Gallery of Ontario, or the Royal Ontario Museum or do some shopping and be home in the early evening.
There is a bus pick up in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Grimsby to meet the GO train in Burlington.
People who have used the service are pleased with it. The only complaint I've heard is that the buses don't have toilets!
I predict a bright future for the service!
Check Point Charlie
The news that Chancellor Merkel, who was raised in the German Democratic Republic (also known as communist East Germany), had been re-elected gave me a lift.
It is not that I endorse her policies---I like some of them, dislike others. It is just that in a world that faces so many seemingly intractable problems it is good to have a success story that reminds us that change is possible.
I was in Berlin in the fall of 1974 as a member of a group of Canadians invited by a German social policy foundation to examine Germany's social programs. Our group was led by Agnes Benidickson, the sister of the Hon. James Richardson who, in 1974 was Minister of Defence in the Trudeau cabinet, and it included Members of Parliament, labour leaders, journalists, public servants and some representatives of non-governmental organizations.
We toured West Germany, visiting the Federal Employment Service headquarters in Nuremburg and the offices of other social policy departments and organizations.
Then we flew into West Berlin, an island of western democracy in the middle of communist Eastern Germany.
Perhaps I should describe the situation in Germany at that time for younger readers. Germany was divided into two parts: West Germany, a western-style democracy and East Germany, a police state. Germany's largest city, Berlin, was not only located deep inside East Germany, but it too was divided into two parts: West Berlin controlled jointly by the US, Britain, France; and East Berlin controlled by the USSR.
There was a high wall, barbed wire. land mines and guard towers to prevent East Berliners from fleeing to West Berlin.
Talk about intractable problems!
West Berlin was a booming place, with fancy and expensive hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and department stores. Above all, there were lights everywhere and of every kind---lights in office buildings, on TV towers, in flashing neon signs, lights illuminating monuments. From my hotel room, I could see across the famous wall into East Berlin and everything was dark, except for a few street lights.
Our hosts thought it would be useful for us to get a first-hand taste of East Berlin in order to see the contrast between western democracy and communism. Having obtained permission for us to spend a few hours driving around the city, they gave us some instructions on how we should behave. We were not to carry items that could be construed as gifts such as blue jeans, chewing gum, nylons. We were not to take photos without permission. And above all, no drugs.
Our bus pulled up to Check Point Charlie, the main opening between East and West Berlin. We saw the famous sign, "You are now leaving the American Sector" and felt a little frisson of apprehension. The bus slowly navigated through the zigzag concrete barriers and stopped at a guard house. (Click here for a Wikipedia article on Check Point Charlie.)
An East German guard waved for us to follow him into a large examination hall. As we waited our turn, we watched as customs officers meticulously examined the belongings of some young tourists. One of the officials spent minutes scrutinizing the seams of a pair of blue jeans. What was he looking for? Microfilm? Small mounts of heroin? Who knows.
Our group was getting bored and started looking around at the walls of the room. On one wall there was a large sign declaring that this was the German Democratic Republic with an insignia and a flag.
Suddenly, there was a flash as someone from our group took a picture of the wall.
All activity in the hall stopped, and guards stormed over to our group demanding to know who had taken the picture. No one confessed.
Our group was taken into a private room. We were asked again to tell the guards who had taken the picture. Again, no one admitted guilt.
The guards took all the cameras and stripped out the film (there were no digital cameras at that time).
Our West German hosts went off with the guards to negotiate a release for us.
We were left alone.
I wondered what the East Germans would do to us. Would they simply ship us back to West Berlin? Or would they detain us for a day or two---or longer? After all this was a police state---the officials could do what they wanted.
I also began to think about the possible press reaction back home. "Members of Parliament and the sister of the Canadian Defence Minister detained at Check Point Charlie."
Finally, our hosts returned and we were taken back into the examination hall. We were processed by sternly disapproving officials.
Then it was back on the bus and into East Berlin. The city had been rebuilt after the bombing of World War II with broad avenues lined with buildings that I later told someone could have been designed by a committee of CBC bureaucrats---safe sensible gray edifices with no flare whatsoever (this was before the CBC changed its spots and created its magnificent Broadcast Centre on Toronto's Front Street).
There was little traffic on the streets, just some odd looking---to us---cars and some tired buses and trucks. The people looked somber, dressed in clothes without any style.
We spent a few hours touring the city and then returned to Checkpoint Charlie, and a friendly reception from the American officials.
This was the world that Chancellor Merkel grew up in.
What an amazing turnabout in the twenty years since the Berlin wall was knocked down.
Perhaps we will live to see some other walls come down---say, in the Middle East.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Once when our dog Cassidy thought he was along in the house, he started to howl, and howl. He only stopped when someone moved around upstairs and he realized he wasn't alone.
We hadn't been aware that he howled when we were away.
We decided to play a trick on him. The next time we went out we left a tape machine recording.
When we came home, he was his usual welcoming self, jumping up on us, racing around, chasing his tail.
Until, that is, we rewound the tape and started to listen to it.
At first, just a little howl, and then a rising crescendo of howls.
Cass looked at the machine, looked at us and then slunk from the room, his small shoulders sagging with embarrassment.
We felt badly that we had played such a cruel trick on that sweet little fellow.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #41 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
Daily Go Buses Come to Niagara
We feel closer to Toronto now that there is a weekday train/bus link with 9 trips each way between here and the big city.
The trip is about 2 hours each way so that it is entirely feasible to go to Toronto in the morning, see the Art Gallery of Ontario, or the Royal Ontario Museum or do some shopping and be home in the early evening.
There is a bus pick up in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Grimsby to meet the GO train in Burlington.
People who have used the service are pleased with it. The only complaint I've heard is that the buses don't have toilets!
I predict a bright future for the service!
Check Point Charlie
The news that Chancellor Merkel, who was raised in the German Democratic Republic (also known as communist East Germany), had been re-elected gave me a lift.
It is not that I endorse her policies---I like some of them, dislike others. It is just that in a world that faces so many seemingly intractable problems it is good to have a success story that reminds us that change is possible.
I was in Berlin in the fall of 1974 as a member of a group of Canadians invited by a German social policy foundation to examine Germany's social programs. Our group was led by Agnes Benidickson, the sister of the Hon. James Richardson who, in 1974 was Minister of Defence in the Trudeau cabinet, and it included Members of Parliament, labour leaders, journalists, public servants and some representatives of non-governmental organizations.
We toured West Germany, visiting the Federal Employment Service headquarters in Nuremburg and the offices of other social policy departments and organizations.
Then we flew into West Berlin, an island of western democracy in the middle of communist Eastern Germany.
Perhaps I should describe the situation in Germany at that time for younger readers. Germany was divided into two parts: West Germany, a western-style democracy and East Germany, a police state. Germany's largest city, Berlin, was not only located deep inside East Germany, but it too was divided into two parts: West Berlin controlled jointly by the US, Britain, France; and East Berlin controlled by the USSR.
There was a high wall, barbed wire. land mines and guard towers to prevent East Berliners from fleeing to West Berlin.
Talk about intractable problems!
West Berlin was a booming place, with fancy and expensive hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and department stores. Above all, there were lights everywhere and of every kind---lights in office buildings, on TV towers, in flashing neon signs, lights illuminating monuments. From my hotel room, I could see across the famous wall into East Berlin and everything was dark, except for a few street lights.
Our hosts thought it would be useful for us to get a first-hand taste of East Berlin in order to see the contrast between western democracy and communism. Having obtained permission for us to spend a few hours driving around the city, they gave us some instructions on how we should behave. We were not to carry items that could be construed as gifts such as blue jeans, chewing gum, nylons. We were not to take photos without permission. And above all, no drugs.
Our bus pulled up to Check Point Charlie, the main opening between East and West Berlin. We saw the famous sign, "You are now leaving the American Sector" and felt a little frisson of apprehension. The bus slowly navigated through the zigzag concrete barriers and stopped at a guard house. (Click here for a Wikipedia article on Check Point Charlie.)
An East German guard waved for us to follow him into a large examination hall. As we waited our turn, we watched as customs officers meticulously examined the belongings of some young tourists. One of the officials spent minutes scrutinizing the seams of a pair of blue jeans. What was he looking for? Microfilm? Small mounts of heroin? Who knows.
Our group was getting bored and started looking around at the walls of the room. On one wall there was a large sign declaring that this was the German Democratic Republic with an insignia and a flag.
Suddenly, there was a flash as someone from our group took a picture of the wall.
All activity in the hall stopped, and guards stormed over to our group demanding to know who had taken the picture. No one confessed.
Our group was taken into a private room. We were asked again to tell the guards who had taken the picture. Again, no one admitted guilt.
The guards took all the cameras and stripped out the film (there were no digital cameras at that time).
Our West German hosts went off with the guards to negotiate a release for us.
We were left alone.
I wondered what the East Germans would do to us. Would they simply ship us back to West Berlin? Or would they detain us for a day or two---or longer? After all this was a police state---the officials could do what they wanted.
I also began to think about the possible press reaction back home. "Members of Parliament and the sister of the Canadian Defence Minister detained at Check Point Charlie."
Finally, our hosts returned and we were taken back into the examination hall. We were processed by sternly disapproving officials.
Then it was back on the bus and into East Berlin. The city had been rebuilt after the bombing of World War II with broad avenues lined with buildings that I later told someone could have been designed by a committee of CBC bureaucrats---safe sensible gray edifices with no flare whatsoever (this was before the CBC changed its spots and created its magnificent Broadcast Centre on Toronto's Front Street).
There was little traffic on the streets, just some odd looking---to us---cars and some tired buses and trucks. The people looked somber, dressed in clothes without any style.
We spent a few hours touring the city and then returned to Checkpoint Charlie, and a friendly reception from the American officials.
This was the world that Chancellor Merkel grew up in.
What an amazing turnabout in the twenty years since the Berlin wall was knocked down.
Perhaps we will live to see some other walls come down---say, in the Middle East.
Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)
Once when our dog Cassidy thought he was along in the house, he started to howl, and howl. He only stopped when someone moved around upstairs and he realized he wasn't alone.
We hadn't been aware that he howled when we were away.
We decided to play a trick on him. The next time we went out we left a tape machine recording.
When we came home, he was his usual welcoming self, jumping up on us, racing around, chasing his tail.
Until, that is, we rewound the tape and started to listen to it.
At first, just a little howl, and then a rising crescendo of howls.
Cass looked at the machine, looked at us and then slunk from the room, his small shoulders sagging with embarrassment.
We felt badly that we had played such a cruel trick on that sweet little fellow.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #41 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.
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