POSTING #101

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Winter Break; "Accessibility" and "Reasonable Accommodation"

Winter Break

Old timers in Arthur used to talk about their farm ancestors who, after 8 or 9 months of backbreaking work, spent a good bit of the winter with their feet in the oven of the wood-stove. The warmth of the oven was welcome in cold, drafty houses, and supposedly it helped keep the blood circulating.

Our house is warm and my circulation is fine, but I feel the need to honour those brave pioneers. So I am going to take a winter break, and---metaphorically---put my feet in the oven.

Therefore, this will be the last posting until February 13th, 2011.

(I know, I know, this is a pathetic---and transparent---justification for goofing off, but it seems to be the best I can come up with at the moment.)

Please don't forget to come back---February 13th, eh!

"Accessibility" and "Reasonable Accommodation"

During a recent trip we found ourselves in a 'accessibility' hotel room. Most of the features were the same as in a regular room but there were some differences. For example, there were two peep holes in the door (one up high and one down at wheelchair level), multiple grab bars in the bathroom, and a closet with a coat bar that was so low that pants couldn't be hung by the cuffs but was just the right height for a person in a wheelchair to use.

The experience reminded me of how much progress we have made in the last 50 years or so in making life more livable for people who have mobility issues.

Not enough progress, to be sure.

But solid progress.

And the credit has to go to many voluntary groups that kept pressure on the rest of us to recognize their special needs. They reminded us that we TABS ---as they sometimes referred to us--- (the Temporarily Able Bodied) were only one accident or one illness away from needing  what some legislation describes as  'reasonable accommodation', that is an adjustment to normal services that will let the mobility impaired get around.

My career in the Federal Government overlapped many of the policy initiatives to increase accessibility.

Here are some stories about that transition.

In the early 1970's I was working in the National Capital and needed to convene a committee of officers from the regions to give operational input into the design of a new computer program. In response to a call for nominations for the committee, which would meet several times in the National Capital area, the head of our British Columbia region phoned me and said he had the perfect candidate. As he described the man's background experience and training, it was clear that he would be a real asset to the committee,.

The regional head said that there was one point I should be aware of.

The person was in a wheelchair.

He explained that the fellow had been driving on a timber company road on Vancouver Island when a tree that was being cut fell, by accident, on the cab of his truck. He was left  paralyzed from the waist down, and confined to a wheelchair.

This was the 1970s, and I had never heard of someone coming to a business meeting in a wheelchair. I asked how he would travel to Ottawa.

The regional head said that the fellow had made a few trips in BC by air. The airlines would lift him and the wheelchair up by forklift truck to the door of the plane used for loading meals.

One of the trips had gone badly. The forklift operator accidentally swung the wheelchair against the doorway of the plane. When the fellow got to the hotel room at his destination, he found he couldn't  remove one of his shoes. Checking, he found that his leg was swollen. Doctors discovered that the bump against the door had broken his leg. He, of course, hadn't felt anything.

The leg was put in a cast and healed well.

The fellow was tough and he wanted 'to get back on the horse'---to fly again.

I agreed to have him as a member of the committee and had one of my people arrange for transportation from the Ottawa airport and for a suitable hotel room. The room was in a new hotel that boasted that its designers had created a certain number of rooms to meet all the needs of wheelchair patrons.

When he arrived at the office the next morning, I asked him about his trip from Vancouver, and the hotel. The trip was great---no forklift accidents.

The hotel room was super, with wide doors, grab bars etc.

Except for one thing.

The floor in the room was covered with shag carpet, which was spectacularly popular in the 1970's. Younger readers may appreciate this Wikipedia description: " Shag carpets are named after their "shaggy" appearance with longer than usual outward strands that make up the carpet."

"It is a brute to roll a wheelchair over that stuff", the BC fellow said.

The well-meaning hotel had gone out of its way to create an accessible room but its designers goofed badly when it came to carpeting.

Despite the carpeting, the fellow elected to stay in the room because of its other accessibility features. He came several times to Ottawa and made a major contribution to the work of the committee.

For our part, we all learned a great deal about accessibility---and personal courage.

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On another occasion, I set up a committee to review the services we were offering to the visually impaired in our public employment offices. One of the members was a person from my group who got around with the help of  a seeing-eye dog. Another department nominated a woman, who also had a seeing-eye dog.

I felt good that we had two visually-impaired people to advise us.

Until the first meeting.

It turned out that the dogs, normally docile, couldn't stand each other and started to fight. We sorted that out by having the women and their dogs sit at opposite ends of the table.

That solved one problem, but created another.

A key member of the committee, a sighted person, had an allergy to dogs, and she had been hoping to have both dogs at one end of the table, while she would sit at the other end.

There was no total solution to that problem. We just had frequent breaks so the woman with dog allergies could breath some clean air.

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We had another problem with a person with allergies when we moved to a new building that had an open-landscaping layout.

As a digression, I was part of a delegation in 1974 that went to Germany to study its employment department, which had its headquarters in Nuremburg, in a spanking-new building.

I was astonished to see that the floors of the large building were divided into individual offices, with floor to ceiling walls. This was different from the open-landscaping arrangement that we had just moved into.

I asked our guide why, since we had been told that Germany had pioneered open-landscaping, they had chosen to have private offices for all their workers.

"Oh', he said, "we tried that but it didn't work." He talked about noise, distractions and loss of privacy.

I told him that I wished they had told the rest of the world that it didn't work!

Anyway, with our open-landscaping, the designers had tried to muffle noises by replacing the hard-surface screens that divided the cubicles with fabric-covered screens.

Everyone agreed that the fabric-covered screens were an improvement except for one person. She came down with sore eyes and  a runny nose. It turned out that dust mites loved the fabric-covered screens and they caused an allergic reaction among susceptible people.

We had to steam-clean the screens around that person's cubicle on a regular basis.

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When Pat was recovering from her artificial knee operations, and when I had a broken leg, we really noticed and appreciated all the benefits that have flowed from the campaigns to make life easier for people with mobility problems.

Things like automatic door openers, lowered curbs, ramps, handrails, bathroom grab bars and so on are great.

As the campaigners told us, we never know when we will stop being a member of the TAB group!

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One last story.

Writing about people with a dog allergy, reminded me of good friends in Ottawa who had a handsome dog with long brown hair who developed a rash. The veterinarian determined that he had an allergy.

To his own hair!

It was the same dog who used to get depressed at Christmas time. He would lie on his back on the landing to the second floor with his legs propped up against the wall.

Aren't dogs wonderful!

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Pat and I would like to wish you and your families happiness and health in the New Year.

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See you on February 13th for Posting #102 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@gmail.com.

Tags: Accessibility, Reasonable Accommodation,

POSTING #100

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100th Posting; Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

100th Posting

They say that time flies when you're having fun. That has certainly been true with Letter from Virgil---I just can't believe that this is the one hundredth Posting.

One of the great things about this experience has been the support and encouragement of you, the readers.

Thank you!

By the way, it has been interesting  to see how Google has responded to the blog. In the beginning, if one did a Google search by typing in "Letter from Virgil" , the blog appeared---if at all---pages down in Google's search 'results'.

Now, a search for "Letter from Virgil" has the blog at the very top of the list of results.

"Letter from Virgil" has arrived---at least according to Google.

That's satisfying.

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

The Chorus Niagara's Flash Mob video continues to  astound. As I upload this Posting, the number of viewings is nearly 23 million.

In Canada, the CBC, CTV and other media outlets have  aired segments about it, while in the United States, CNN, Fox News, ABC, The View, National Public Radio have all commented on it. And international media have picked it up as well, for example the hugely popular German network ZDF broadcast the video on one of its news shows.

Some of the female choristers have received proposals while the young man who appears as a janitor waving a 'Wet Floor' sign---a University of Toronto student in real life---has assumed almost cult status. One gets the impression that some female viewers would love to take him home with them.

We heard about a 14 month-old toddler who, when he heard his mother watching the video, came over, watched it for a few moments and then began to dance in time with the music. At the end of the video he clapped. (He just happens to be our grandson---precocious isn't he?)

People are trying to figure out what has happened, what is the magic that has made the video so popular.

One of the choristers told us she was puzzled. She said that they just went to the Seaway Mall in Welland to record a song, and suddenly all this happened. She shook her head.

Pat has a theory that although Handel's music is sublime and the singing superb, the unexpected success of the video is due to 'shock and awe'. The people in the food court came to shop and suddenly a concert broke out (like the old joke about a man who said he went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out).

I think Pat is right about 'shock and awe', and what makes that so effective is the enormously skillful camera work and editing by Alphabet Photography, which organized the video. We see mothers and their children caught up in the event, people wiping tears from their eyes, and we see close up shots that show the energy and joy of the singers.

Most of the YouTube comments are full of praise (there are a few nasty comments---not about the performance---from  people who use the video as a springboard to launch attacks against religion, against atheism, against the American Civil Liberties Union, against and for the United States, etc. etc. They need to get a life!)

Again and again, people comment about the tears the video brought---one woman complained that it had ruined her freshly-applied mascara.

Jews, Muslims, atheists have all praised the video. People have written in French, Russian, German and many languages that I don't recognize.

Here are some comments I liked:

"Every time I watch this I get the holy goose bumps and tears in my eyes. So powerful! THANK YOU!! and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! Hallelujah!!!!!"

"What I find impressive is how these stunning voices come out of such young people who look nothing like what one imagines a classical singer to look like. And how many there are. And how wonderful it all sounds. I'm all choked up."

"Magnifique!!! Bravo!!! Encore!!! Beautiful to listen to, fun to watch the joy on everyone's faces. Can't stop watching it. Thank you and Merry Christmas!!!"

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Last weekend we went to see Chorus Niagara perform the full Messiah, in Grimsby at the Mountainview Christian Reform Church (the church was chosen for its size and acoustics). The sold-out concert was breathtakingly beautiful.

Handel certainly knew how to use the human voice in his compositions, and the Chorus's Artistic Director, Robert Cooper, the orchestra, the soloists and the chorus made the most of his inspired music.

When they reached the Hallelujah chorus, the singers closed their music and sang their hearts out, with many members of the audience---who, as tradition demands, were all standing---joining in.

Floating above this not-to-be-forgotten evening was a feeling of pride that after years of hard work our Chorus Niagara was suddenly world-famous.

We are told that the Chorus has received far more invitations to perform than they could ever accept. The Chorus is saying that they need some time to adjust to the success of the video. Perhaps in January they will have time to think about how to respond to all the demands.

Whatever happens, my prediction is that the video will become a Christmas classic---that it will be played and replayed, year after year.

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Merry Christmas to all from Pat, me and our family!

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See you on December 26th for Posting #101 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #99

Update on Posting #97: Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

When I uploaded Posting #97, the total viewings of the Hallelujah YouTube video was an astounding 2.1 million. Seven days later when I uploaded Posting #98, it was an even more astounding 8.5 million. Now, a week later, as I upload this Posting, the total is now a still more astounding 17.5 million. Where will it end?

So much joy, for so many people!

Some Stories from the Kingdom of Jordan

Friends have shared with us pictures they took during a recent trip to Israel and Jordan. In one of the photos, the wife is taking the obligatory 'float' in the Dead Sea.

That reminded me of a trip that Pat and I made to the Dead Sea in the spring of 2001 to do our own 'floats'.

As I walked into the sea, the water was colder than I expected---it was the Middle East, after all, and water should be warm. Instead it was about the temperature of Lake Ontario in July, that is, COOL. When the water reached my waist, I did what I do before dipping into Lake Ontario. I splashed some water on my chest and arms to prepare them for the dunking they were about to receive.

Unfortunately, some of the water splashed into my eyes. No one had warned me about not getting Dead Sea water in the eyes. My eyes started to burn instantly. I wanted to rub them but my hands were covered with Dead Sea water.

Not knowing what to do, I stumbled blindly back to the beach. In the meantime, our driver who was quietly enjoying a cigarette on the beach saw what had happened and ran to a beach stand. He came racing back with a bottle of  spring water, which he used to rinse my eyes.

I went back in, had my picture taken, got out and headed for the nearest shower.

I guess I would recommend that visitors try the 'float'. It's an eerie feeling all right.

Just don't get water in your eyes!!

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Talking of eyes, I developed an eye infection during my work in Jordan. I went to see a doctor recommended by the Canadian Embassy. He promptly booked an appointment for me with an ophthalmologist, for later the same day.

The walls of the specialist's waiting room were covered with his diplomas (he had received his ophthalmology training at a hospital in Liverpool, England)  and clippings from Liverpool and  Jordanian newspapers with articles about how he had restored eyesight to people who had been blind.

He was tall, good looking, in his late 40s, dressed in a well-tailored suit with a white shirt and tie. After examining my eye and prescribing an anti-biotic, the specialist pushed aside the machine he had been using to see into my eyes.

He asked me whether I used sun glasses. I said I did but he looked at me doubtfully.

"If you do", he said, "you and I are the only two people in Amman who wear them."

He went on about how difficult it was to convince Arabs to wear sun glasses, and how dangerous the bright desert sun was to eyes.

Then he offered a totally new insight into the problems we have been having with the Middle East.

"You westerners think that we don't like you. You think we are always frowning at you. We aren't frowning, we are squinting because we don't wear sun glasses."

I'm thinking of offering this insight to the international experts trying to negotiate a Middle East peace treaty.

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The current US discussion about airport body scanners and 'pat downs' reminds me of an incident when we were leaving Jordan to return to Canada,

Pat 'failed' the metal detector test at the Amman airport---because of a metal bra clasp. She was directed over to a small, private booth for a 'pat down'.

When she rejoined me in the airport concourse she looked angry, with fire in her eye.

I asked how things had gone.

She said that the 'pat down' had been extremely thorough, and that was OK, but what had annoyed her was that the examination was performed by two people in burqas, with only their eyes showing. They didn't talk to her, just directed her by gestures.

What, she wondered, if they were not women, but men!!!!

It was a scary, and annoying experience.

If her privacy was going to be invaded, she should at least have been able to see the faces of the examiners.

Not at all an unreasonable view!!!!

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This story didn't take place in Jordan but it has a Jordanian aspect. I should interject that there was often confusion when I told people in Grimsby about my work in Jordan. Some people thought I was talking about the town down the road, Jordan, Ontario.

I was home in Grimsby on leave from the  Jordanian assignment, and Pat and I decided to have a dinner party for 6 couples. The people were from different places in the Niagara Peninsula, including a couple from Jordan, Ontario.

Pat decided that the menu would include a salad, spaghetti carbonara, a chocolate dessert and would finish with some Jordanian coffee that I had brought home with me.

Prior to leaving Jordan, I visited a fine spice store in Swafia---the Yorkville Village area of Amman. I selected a half kilo of dark-roasted coffee beans, which the clerk poured into the hopper of a coffee grinder. He than asked me how much cardamom to put in. Almost all Jordanian coffee has cardamom ground with the beans, with each family deciding how much to put in. It is the cardamom that makes Jordanian coffee so unique.

I asked for advice, and the clerk picked up a small handful of green cardamom pods and said that was the usual amount to add.

I nodded and he put the pods in the hopper. He ground the beans and pods until they were very fine, and then put the coffee in an air-tight package.

Pat had obtained the recipe for making the coffee from the wife of a Jordanian colleague. It involved putting a few tablespoons of coffee, along with a good bit of sugar and some water into a sauce pan and cooking everything for a few minutes. The coffee was then poured directly from the pan into small cups.

We both had learned to like the bracing drink and we regularly drained the cups until only a little black residue from the finally ground beans was left.

The Grimsby dinner party went well. The spaghetti carbonara was just right (a guest of Italian origin went back for seconds!). The dessert was enjoyed and wine flowed freely throughout the meal.

Pat then asked if people would like to try some Jordanian coffee, noting we had 'regular' if they wished. Everyone opted for the Jordanian.

They seemed to like it and one woman was particularly enthusiastic. She wanted to know more about the coffee.

The conversation that follows is, I think, better heard than read. May I suggest that you read it out loud.

WOMAN: Where did you get this coffee?

PAT: From Amman.

WOMAN: Which man?

PAT: From Amman in Jordan

WOMAN: Well, WHICH man in Jordan?

HUSBAND OF THE WOMAN (tapping his wife on the shoulder): They got it from Amman in Jordan.

WOMAN: (somewhat heatedly): I know they got it from a man in Jordan. What I want to know is WHICH man in Jordan.

HUSBAND: (still tapping his wife on the shoulder) Mary, Mary, they got it from the city of Amman in the country of Jordan.

WOMAN: (even more heatedly) Well, why didn't they SAY so!

Kind of reminds you of the famous Abbot and Costello, "Who's on First" routine, doesn't it. Click here to play a YouTube version of that routine.

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See you on December 19th for Posting #100 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #98

 

Update on Posting #97: Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

When I uploaded Posting #97, the total viewings of the Hallelujah YouTube video was an astounding 2.1 million. Now, seven days later, it is an even more astounding 8.5 million.

I guess this is what they mean by the term 'viral video'.

Good for Chorus Niagara, and little Welland!

Chorus Niagara will be performing the full Messiah on December 11 (in Grimsby) and 12 (in St. Catharines). We will be attending the Grimsby performance.

Ottawa, Osteopaths and Other Stories

A few weeks ago (Posting 95)  I told some stories about the Chateau Laurier swimming pool.

Writing that posting brought back some more memories.

One of the reasons I swim is because of a 'dodgy' back which I think I inherited from my father. Every so often Dad's back would 'go out' and he would go to Guelph to visit an osteopath, called Dr. Handorf. (I guess it was just my adolescent sense of humour but I always thought it was funny that an osteopath would have a name like Handorf for an occupation that was so clearly hands-on.)

My sore backs began when I was just 30, working, at the Canadian Immigration office in  London England. I reached down to pick up a heavy book from the bottom shelf of a book case.

And wham!---a severe pain shot across my lower back.

After a colleague helped me straighten up, my right hip was sticking out to the east, while the rest of me was canting to the west---it has been the same pattern with all my sore backs.

Our GP, avuncular Dr. Knight, who lived next door, paid a house call that evening. He reassured me that this wasn't the end of the world, that after some rest I would be able to move around just fine. However, he said, I would probably have to wear an appliance--- he undid some shirt buttons to show me a kind of corset that he always wore---to support the back.

I did recover, but anxious to avoid a corset for life, I took the advice of a book about back troubles and began to swim. Several times a week on my home I would swim in a large pool at London's Marshall Street Baths in Westminster.

When we returned to Canada in 1966, I started swimming at the Chateau Laurier, and sometimes at the Champagne Bath on King Edward. (What a wonderful picture that conjures up---bathing in champagne! The swimming pool, which was named after a local politician named Champagne, is now called the Champagne Fitness Centre. Look guys, that's not an improvement!)

At one point, despite the swimming, my back went out. A friend recommended an osteopath on Metcalfe Street, just a few blocks below Parliament Hill.

The osteopath, who was in his late 60s or early 70s,  looked me over, felt my back and said. "Don't worry, we'll soon have your ass under your shoulders again'.

He had me lie on my face on a treatment table with a hinged bottom so that he could swing the bottom half of my body back and forth to loosen up the muscles. This could go on for 10 or 15 minutes.

Then the osteopath would have me lie on my side with my back to him, wrap his arms around me and administer what I think is called 'an adjustment' in the trade but Pat (who also has back problems) calls a 'scrunch'. This is a sudden, sharp movement that pulls the spine in different directions and produces a 'click' as vertebrae are moved into what is hopefully a better alignment.

 During the swinging back and forth phase, the osteopath would ask questions about what was causing my stress and offer helpful advice. He would also chat about political and other issues of the day. I enjoyed his down-to-earth, Ottawa Valley wit and humour.

One day, as I was being swung he asked if I had had any dealings with the ex-Prime Minister, Mr. Diefenbaker. I said I hadn't but knowing that the  Chief had periodic back problems, I asked if he was a patient.

He might be garrulous but the osteopath wasn't going to reveal any professional secrets. He just 'hmmffed' a bit.

Then he said, "That Mrs. Diefenbaker is a wonderful woman."

I told him that she had taught at the Arthur High School in the 1940s, before she married Mr. Diefenbaker. The Arthur students and parents had all liked her.

"That woman', he said, "will not spend even a second in purgatory. She'll go straight to heaven."

That was his way of telling me that the Chief was indeed a patient but not a very pleasant one and that living with him couldn't have been very easy for his wife.

That fitted with stories one heard at the time, that the Chief who was normally affable and pleasant in public (except when he was on the attack against Grits on the campaign trail or in Question Period!), could be cantankerous in private.

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While Mr. Diefenbaker was Prime Minister he was attending a conference in London when his back went out. Someone suggested he see an osteopath---a rarity at that time in Britain. The osteopath was an Englishman who had qualified as a Doctor of Osteopathy in Missouri, USA.

From all reports, the treatments helped the Chief and he was able to finish the conference.

Now you may well be asking why in the world I would bring up this story.

On the face of it, Mr. Diefenbaker being treated by an osteopath in London wouldn't appear to qualify as an asterisk to history, not even as an asterisk to an asterisk!

But then this wasn't just your garden-variety osteopath.

This was Dr. Stephen Ward.

I can hear younger readers saying, "Stephen who?".

Older readers are likely saying, "That name rings a bell. Wait a minute, Wasn't he connected with the Profumo scandal, Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies and that lot?"

And once again, age wins out.

In 1961, John Profumo who was British Secretary of State for War, attended a pool party at Lord Astor's estate, Cliveden. At the party, Dr. Ward introduced him to Christine Keeler, one of the bevy of beautiful young women with whom he surrounded himself, some of whom lived in his luxurious Mayfair apartment.

Profumo had an affair with Keeler not realizing she was also having an affair with a spy, a naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy. When the story broke, Profumo had to resign in disgrace.

The story had everything the British like: sex, spies, drugs, the aristocracy. |You can read the juicy story in this Wikipedia article.

In 1963, Dr. Ward was charged with living off the avails of prostitution and during the investigation it was revealed that one of his patients had been Prime Minister Diefenbaker.

There was never a suggestion that the Chief received anything from Dr. Ward but 'scrunches' but some nasty-minded people delighted in trying to imagine him frolicking in an aristocrat's pool with amorous young nymphs.

I have a reasonably elastic imagination but it would never---ever, ever---stretch that far!

I think it is generally agreed now that the prosecution of Dr. Ward was a mistake, that an embarrassed British government was lashing out at him. Rather than living on the avails of prostitution, it is likely that he provided more money and support to the young women than they ever gave him. An avid social climber, he had found that introducing attractive young women to politicians and aristocrats helped him gain access to the upper classes.

But the scandal, which had so many farcical features, ended tragically.

On the last day of the trial, Ward took an overdose of sleeping pills, and after several days in a coma, he died.

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A postscript to the scandal.

While the trial was going on we lived in an apartment  in Marylebone, in central London, and our window cleaner claimed that he also cleaned the windows for one of 'Ward's women', Mandy Rice-Davies.

"The things I have seen", he would say.

But when we pushed him to elaborate, he shook his head. Like the Ottawa osteopath, he had certain professional standards that required him to respect the privacy of his clients.

It all reminded me of George Formby, the Lancashire comedian/singer/actor who had a famous, somewhat racy song, "When I'm Cleaning Windows".

Here is a YouTube version of his song.

It's an 'oldie' but I think you might enjoy it.

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See you on December 12th for Posting #99 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #97

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

On Thursday, November 18th, Pat received this email from a friend, fellow quilter and chorister, Joan:

"Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE 

To hear my Chorus (Chorus Niagara) surprise a crowd of shoppers last weekend!  It was fun watching the reactions of unsuspecting innocent bystanders!  I can see by the video that some people who were not choristers also joined in! 

Joan"

Now, we ignore many emails that invite us to check out this or that website or video.

Life is short and our 'to-do lists' are long.

And experience has taught us that such invitations often lead  to porn, a spam message about how to increase breast or penis size, or---worse---to a virus.

But since Joan is her friend, Pat clicked on the link. She watched for a few moments and then shouted, "This is amazing, You've got to see this!"

I went over and watched.

It was amazing.

When we first watched the video, there had been 350 viewings. Within a day the viewings were in the thousands, a week later the viewings were 1.2 million and as I upload this posting the total is over 2.1 million---all of that in 10 days!

This posting is going to be about that YouTube video. May I respectfully suggest that if you haven't already watched the video (4 minutes and 57 seconds) you click on the link above, in Joan's email?

And then come back.

Please don't forget to come back!

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If you are wondering how the video came to be made, I recommend this article in the Welland Tribune. It explains why the opening singer has a cell phone to her ear throughout the video, and who the 'janitor' in the coveralls waving a 'Wet Floor' sign actually is.

I hope the Tribune won't mind if I reprint a couple of excerpts.

"WELLAND — One minute, Stephanie Tritchew was just a face in the busy Seaway Mall crowd, sipping coffee at a cafeteria table and chatting on her cellphone.
The next, the St. Catharines native was standing and belting out "hallelujahs" from the famed chorus in Handel's Messiah in front of a stunned food court congregation.
"The first reaction was jaw-dropping surprise and people laughing," said the startling soprano, who broke into song around noon last Saturday at the Welland mall. "Then just about everyone whipped out their phone cameras at once." "

And the article concludes with this quote from Ms. Tritchew about the reaction of a family sitting right in front of her.

"'They had these two little kids with big eyes and one of them said, 'Mom, this is so cool,'" recalled Tritchew. "I just loved it. I loved that we really seemed to lift people's spirits like that."

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There have been hundreds and hundreds of comments on the video. Here is one of my favourites, from a woman named Martine in France---my translation follows:

Mille mercis pour ces prodigieux instants de pur bonheur!.
Fantastique, fabuleux, extraordinaire, merveilleux!.
L'Art près de chez nous!.
Sans cérémonie, costumes et noeuds papillons, robes de soirée ni rivières de diamants!.
Une simple mais exceptionnelle présence et pas uniquement auditive!.
Celle du coeur (du choeur!) tout simplement!!!......

A thousand thank-you's for these amazing moments of pure happiness!

Fantastic, fabulous, extraordinary, marvellous!

Art brought to where we live!

Without ceremony, no suits with bow-ties, no silk dresses, no sparkling jewellery!

A simple but exceptional performance and not just for the ears!

A performance straight from the heart!!!

(The original has a clever play on words in the last line involving 'coeur'---'heart'---and 'choeur'---'choir'--- that I haven't been able to translate into English.) 

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I also liked a comment in which the writer proposed that the Niagara Chorus create another flash mob experience, this time using Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

If that happens, perhaps Pat could persuade Joan to give us a 'heads up' so that we could join the mall crowd.

To quote the little boy, that would be 'so cool'.

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See you on December 5th for Posting #98 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #96

"The Civil War of 1812"

I have a confession to make.

While I was studying Canadian history at high school and later at university I found the War of 1812 boring---extremely, even deadly boring.

To be sure there was the tragic story of brave General Brock being shot and killed by an American sniper as he led his troops up the hill in an effort to retake Queenston Heights from an American force that had managed to capture it.

And I liked the story about the tall monument on the top of Queenston Heights built in his honour by a grateful nation, topped with an immense statue of the General with a finger pointing---it is claimed---at Washington, with the implicit message, 'Don't ever try that again!'

I also admired the bravery of Laura Secord who trekked through dense bush to warn the British that the Americans had invaded---although I didn't much like her chocolates.

But the War seemed to be about several years of border skirmishes, the dates and locations of which I had trouble remembering. And when it ended, the pre-war borders remained intact.

My views about the War began to change after we moved to Virgil 2 years ago. Planning for a War of 1812 Bicentennial was heating up. I joined  one of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bicentennial committees and started dipping into some histories about the War.

But last weekend, my views about the War did a sudden shift to a full 180 degrees away from 'boring'. I went to Buffalo for a lecture given by Professor Alan Taylor who has just finished a massive history of the War, called "The Civil War of 1812". (Pat couldn't come---she was attending a lecture on how to cut out patterns to make 1812 vintage clothes for us to wear during the Bicentennial!)

Taylor, a native of Maine,  teaches American and Canadian history at the University of California at Davis and has received a number of prestigious awards for previous books, including a Pulitzer Prize.

As I listened to the professor, I remembered a discussion with a retired historian in Kingston. She said that in history it was not important to know that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. Instead, it was important to know why it couldn't have taken place in 966 or 1166.

Professor Taylor's talk was full of the 'why's' of the War of 1812.

And suddenly, I saw the War in a new light and realized that it wasn't boring at all.

Let me jot down some points that I took away from his talk and from the questions period that followed. I should stress that these are my conclusions, not necessarily those of the good professor.

1. Americans have been taught that the British started the war, and that it consisted mainly of some naval battles and the glorious victory at New Orleans when General Andrew Jackson defeated an invading British force (this was in January 1815, a month after a peace treaty had been signed in Europe but word hadn't yet reached the North America combatants). Out of this battle came the US national anthem and the myth that the US won the War.

2. In fact, the US started the war, with a Declaration of War passed in 1812, primarily with the support of southern and western members of Congress. Congress decided to leave town without voting tax increases for the cost of the war, the argument being that the war would  cost very little because the residents of Upper Canada would welcome the US troops as liberators and would provide them with free shelter and food. (Remind you of another war?)

3. Americans have not been taught that most of the fighting in the War took place in the Great Lakes basin and that the US lost most of those battles.

4. The War should be seen as a kind of civil war with Americans, British Subjects, Irish settlers and natives on both sides of the border fighting each other, sometimes literally brother against brother.

5. Canada would almost surely have lost the war if it had not been for the support of native warriors at critical points. Instead of rewarding the natives for their invaluable help, Canadian authorities treated them abominably.

6. By the autumn of 1814, the War had almost bankrupted the US, and states in the north-east which were furious at the western and southern states who had pushed for the War, were threatening to secede from the union. If Britain hadn't offered the US a peace treaty, the US would probably have gone broke and split up.

7. Taylor argues that the War was not inconsequential as many American histories have suggested but that it had profound consequences for the US.

8. He sees the American Revolution as having two acts. The first act was the successful fight by the American colonies against the British in the period from 1776-1783. But that act left unresolved the issue of whether the new nation would tolerate a northern nation that was British. The second act was the War of 1812 in which the US attempted to finish the revolution by taking over its northern neighbour.   

9. The failure of the US invasion in the Great Lakes basin convinced most Americans that they had to share North America, and this in effect marked the true end of the American Revolution.

10. And on this side of the border, the War convinced Upper Canadians that they had to create their own country, a country that would have friendly relations with the US but would have to have its own institutions and values.

So, both nations were dramatically shaped by what I had thought was a boring War.

Not boring, at all.

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My experiences with the border officers as I travelled to Buffalo for the lecture and later returned to Canada were interesting.

At the US border, the officer when he heard I was going to hear a lecture on the War of 1812 said, "Wow, I love the history of that period. I wish someone had told me about the lecture."

At the Canadian border on the way home, the officer when he heard that I had been to the War lecture almost hissed, "How biased was it?"

I said that I thought the lecture was fair and even-handed.

Looking skeptical, he asked, "Did they tell you that General Brock died when he fell off his horse, not when he was leading his troops into battle---stuff like that?"

I shook my head, and said that the speaker hadn't said anything like that.

With a look that said he was disappointed in how gullible I was, he waved me through.

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One shouldn't extrapolate from two brief encounters.

But I will, anyway.

It seems to me that many Americans, including tourists who will come to our Bicentennial, are ready for a more accurate account of the War---an account of the kind conveyed in Professor Taylor's book.

For our part, we will have to suppress the urge to get even for past insults and slights. I believe the expression is, 'suck it up'.

In that connection, I am told that when the Bicentennial folks in Niagara-on-the-Lake were trying to find a motto to go below the logo they were developing, someone facetiously suggested, 'We Beat the Bast--ds!'.

It was decided to go with 'Upper Canada Preserved".

A wise choice!

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If you like history, and relatives or friends are asking for hints about what you would like for Christmas, you might suggest Professor Taylor's book. I bought a copy at the lecture and it is a wonderful read.

Taylor is a skilled, subtle and good-humoured story teller who, I believe, has 'reset' the history of that period. All future histories of the War of 1812---whether written by Canadians or Americans---will have to start with his work.

Here are the details of the book:

The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies by Alan Taylor, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,

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See you on November 28th for Posting #97 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #95

Some Stories about Ottawa's Chateau Laurier Hotel

In an earlier posting I mentioned swimming in the pool at the Chateau Laurier Hotel (now called the Fairmont Chateau Laurier) while I was working on Parliament Hill in the early 1970s.

The hotel had a membership program that allowed male members to use the changing room, showers, a pool, a  large dry sauna, and a Turkish steam bath. A massage therapist was on hand---at additional cost---to soothe away whatever tensions were left after sessions in the sauna and steam room.

The setup wasn't luxurious by today's standards but it was a very pleasant place to get some exercise and forget the 'crise du jour'.

I've listed the facilities that males were entitled to use.

You may ask 'what about females'?

When I first joined the program, women could be members but they had only a changing room, showers and what I was told was a pokey dry sauna, and of course the pool.

Women members started agitating for facilities that were more like those enjoyed by the men.

The management found it difficult to tweak the basement space in the 1912 hotel, with its heavy stone construction, in order to increase the space for the women's program.

The hotel decided on a compromise. The women members could use the men's facilities twice a week (I seem to recall it was Tuesdays and Fridays) for several hours over the lunch-time period.

The male members grumbled a bit but acquiesced---after all fair is fair. We just made a mental note to fit our visits around the 'women's times'.

A colleague in the  Privy Council, where I worked at the time, was a member of the club. He was a highly intelligent fellow, but very shy.

One day, he came back from lunch looking shaken.

"What's wrong?', I asked

"It was terrible!"

"What was terrible?"

"I went to have a swim, and as I was going into the changing room I saw this naked fellow walking ahead of me."

"So?', I said.

"This guy had really big hips and I thought that was strange. And then I realized it was Tuesday, women's day, and the 'guy' was a woman.

"What did you do?"

"I fled."

"Did she see you?'

"I don't think so, but I keep thinking---what if she had turned around, had seen me and started to scream."

There was silence for a time as we looked at each other and tried to imagine the scene that might have occurred, with the naked woman wheeling around, seeing him, letting out an enormous scream, all of this while she was trying to cover her bits.

And then of staff members rushing in to help a damsel in distress.

He was right.

Scary stuff.

It turned out he had been so upset that he hadn't been able to eat lunch. We went down to our canteen and after a sandwich and some herbal tea he was able to go back to work.

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The pool complex was managed by a very efficient, motherly woman in her early 60s whose mother tongue was French. Her English was good but she sometimes had trouble finding the right word in her second language.

One day as I was signing in she leaned over the counter and said in a low voice, "Does Mr. Hees ever bother you in the pool?"

Now, I knew who she was talking about. Everyone knew who 'Gorgeous' George Hees was---the tall, handsome, millionaire son of a famous Toronto family, who had been an Argonaut football player, a war hero, a Member of Parliament and a minister in several departments in the Diefenbaker governments. I had seen him once or twice in the pool but hadn't taken any particular notice of him---lots of celebrities used the pool.

But what was she talking about. The expression, 'bother you' had at least a couple of possible meanings. I have to confess that my first thought was that she was asking whether Mr. Hees was making advances to me (OK, I have a suspicious mind, with a sometimes dirty tinge).

But this didn't square with his public reputation, which was a bit Clintonesque---if you'll forgive the anachronism. Although he had a charming and attractive wife, he liked women and they liked him.

There had been reports of dalliances but I had never heard any rumours about him being interested in men.

Stumped, I replied that, 'no', he hadn't bothered me.

Then her meaning became clearer. She said that some patrons had complained that Mr. Hees had inadvertently hit them as he swam. If he hit me I was to tell her and she would speak to him.

Later, before getting the pool, I watched Mr. Hees plow back and forth in his lane. He was using an aggressive, unorthodox crawl stroke. As you know, with a skilled swimmer, when one arm has pulled through the water, the swimmer lifts the elbow out of the water, brings the arm forward just above the water and slips the arm into the water in front of the head, with hardly a ripple.

Mr. Hees, on the other hand, rotated the arm out of the water, thrust it up in a half-circle high above his body and let it crash down in front of him. His arms were extra long and heavy and  I could see that if an arm went a little astray and  landed in a neighbouring lane it could damage anyone unlucky enough to be there.

After that, I made a point of swimming in a lane well away from Mr. Hees so that he wouldn't 'bother' me.

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Prime Minister Diefenbaker promoted Mr. Hees to be Minister of Trade and Commerce in 1960 following his successful stint as Minister of Transport.

The new minister decided that the overseas trade commissioners were spending too much time in the embassies on diplomatic activities and  not doing enough to promote the sale of Canadian goods and services. He arranged to have each commissioner sent a tie clip with the initials 'YCDBSOYA', which translated into, "You can't do business sitting on your ass".

I was in Britain at the time---with the Immigration side of our Foreign Service---and I heard my Trade colleagues complain about what they considered a nasty, rude and totally inappropriate ministerial insult.

The tie clips were crude but they made a point. In the rebuilding years after the Second World War, European nations needed whatever Canada had to offer but by the 1960s trade had become much more internationally competitive. Canada had to get out and sell.

Brash old George spelled out that message very clearly.

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As Prime Minister Diefenbaker's leadership and managerial weaknesses became apparent, observers speculated that Mr. Hees might succeed him as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

Until, that is, when Mr. Hees had lunch with Gerda Munsinger.    

For younger readers, Ms Munsinger (1929-1998) was an East German prostitute, who married an American soldier, and then, in 1955, somehow immigrated to Canada. She worked in Montreal as a maid, a waitress and a night club hostess, and although it is unproven, it was believed that she was also working as a Soviet spy. She had an affair with a Diefenbaker minister, Pierre Sévigny, and some kind of relationship with Mr. Hees.

In 1961. when the security people found out what was going on, Ms Munsinger was quietly deported from Canada back to Germany. Mr. Sévigny resigned but Mr. Hees, who argued that he had just had lunch with her, was allowed to continue in the cabinet.

The story of her relationships with Conservative ministers remained secret until 1966 when a Minister in Mr. Pearson's cabinet leaked the story, during a heated House of Commons debate.

In the official enquiry that followed, Mr. Hees acknowledged that he had shown poor judgment in having lunch with Ms. Munsinger. The enquiry agreed with him that he had been unwise but did not conclude that his behaviour had put official secrets at risk,

However, Mr. Hees career, which had seemed so promising, stalled.

 When the Conservatives returned to power in the 1980s, the Prime Minister, Joe Clark chose not to include Mr. Hees in his cabinet, an insult that Mr. Hees never forgave.

A Wikipedia article on Hees records that when Joe Clark was defeated in the party's 1983 leadership vote, Mr. Hees was overheard to say, "We got him! We got the s.o.b."

That was brash old George---and I'm sure he didn't use the initials s.o.b.

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See you on November 21st for Posting #96 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #94

An Update on Life in Niagara

Recent postings have wandered around the world a bit and it seems appropriate to focus some attention on things closer to home---especially in a blog entitled Letter from Virgil.

So here are a few stories about Niagara today.

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Being relative newcomers to Niagara, we are frequently asked how we like the area. We are always positive---genuinely so---and reply that we find it a good place to live.

Recently, a long-time resident who had asked us this question nodded when we said we liked it and then added, "But it is a terrible place for issues. You turn around and there is another issue, with letters to the editor and public meetings."

He's right.

In an earlier posting I mentioned several issues that were big at that time, issues on which we didn't know which side to take because we were just too new to understand all the ins and outs of them.

Here is an update on some of those issues.

There was a debate about whether or not to close the Niagara District Secondary School, as the Regional Board of Education wanted to do. Despite political pressure and some court challenges, the Board won and the school closed at the end of June. The students are now being bused to Niagara Falls or St. Catharines.

Friends of the school are arguing that the school should be essentially mothballed in case the influx of young couples now underway will produce enough students in a few years to justify its reopening.

I suspect that the Board---which like all Ontario boards is chronically short of money--- would like to turn  the school and its large and valuable land into cash.

Another issue revolved around Project Niagara, which would have created an annual summer music festival on the shores of Lake Ontario with the Toronto skyline in the background. The National Arts Centre Orchestra from Ottawa and the Toronto Symphony would have performed along with orchestras from around the world.

The sticking point for local residents was how to get a couple of thousand people to the performances without creating traffic chaos and destroying the character of the town.

The project had received indications of financial support from different levels of government but the recession and rising deficits have scuppered those tentative commitments.

The project is now dead, but perhaps not buried.

Finally there was a debate about where to locate a state-of-the-art hospital for Niagara. Local politicians from Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Port Colborne etc argued that it shouldn't be located in 'greedy' St. Catharines, 'which always gets everything'.

Talk about sibling rivalry!

The hospital is now well underway---in St. Catharines.

But to keep peace in the family, Niagara Falls wins a consolation prize in the form of a transfer of the headquarters for the Niagara Regional Police Service, which has been in St. Catharines, to a large new building that will be located in the Falls.

There is now a new issue. 

Trish Romance (surely one of the most commercially successful artists in Canada) and her husband own the large, historic Randwood Estate and wish to develop part of it.  (Click here for an excellent website with great images of the buildings and grounds.)   Plans include a hotel,  a spa, a restaurant and so on.

There is an upcoming public meeting sponsored by the developers that will try to convince residents that the proposed changes will be a 'good thing', that will benefit the community. Neighbouring residents are very skeptical.

I will keep you posted.

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Recent statistics on visits by Americans to Ontario show some improvement for July compared with last July, but the figures for the first 7 months of 2010 are lower than for the same period in 2009. Obviously, the recession in the US, passport requirements and the higher loonie are still hurting our tourism business.

Meanwhile, trips into the US by Ontario residents are up markedly.

Before the statistics came out we had conducted a couple of totally unscientific surveys that came to roughly the same results as the official statistics.

We drove slowly along some of the main streets in the Old Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake counting license plates. Eight out of 10 cars were from Ontario, with a sprinkling of cars from Quebec and the US. Judging by dealer stickers, many of the Ontario cars were from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) It seems that the GTA is keeping the Shaw Festival and the other parts of our tourist industry afloat.

Good for Toronto!

The second survey was conducted in the parking lot at Fashion Outlets in Niagara Falls NY---home to 150 outlet stores. Again, 8 out of 10 cars were from Ontario, with many of those from Markham, Oakville and other centres in and around the GTA.

It seems that the GTA is also keeping part of the Western New York State economy afloat!

In our Fashion Outlets survey we found a Porsche with Ontario plates and a dealer's sticker from the GTA. We also happened to notice that the license plate had expired many months before, in February 2010

What conclusion should we draw from that?

That Porsche owners are somehow special and don't have to bother with trifling things like updating licenses?

That even Porsche owners are feeling some financial pain, and they are skipping license fees in order to make the monthly car payments---and to be able to shop for bargains at an outlet mall?

Or, that Porsche owners have many weighty things on their minds, and they tend to be a bit forgetful?

I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to figure out which of these hypotheses seems most apt.

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I'll conclude with another story about a fancy European car--- not as expensive as a Porsche but expensive.

A friend had bought a ticket for a relative living in the GTA, so the relative could accompany her to a costly conference in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

When the GTA person was ready to leave for the conference, she found that her car wouldn't start.

She decided to borrow her son's European car that he had stored with her while he went overseas for a few months. She checked the gas, which was fine, as was the license plate renewal sticker.

However, she forgot to check the car insurance.

The need to switch cars meant she was running behind schedule so she pushed the softly purring car a good bit above the speed limit on the QEW.

Exiting the QEW and getting onto Highway 55 she saw that she was just 15 kilometres from the conference. But time was still tight, so she kept her foot on the gas.

I should interrupt the story here to issue a warning about Virgil and speed traps. Coming  into the town, one can be driving along---posted speed of 80 KPH--- enjoying the vineyards and suddenly there is a small sign at the under-populated edge of Virgil that gives the speed limit as 50 KPH. The sign is easy to miss, as is the police officer standing well back from the road with a radar gun.

Until the officer pulls you over!

And that's what happened to the woman from the GTA.

Apparently, the police officer was a young man, and 'quite cute'. The driver explained about her car not starting, about being late for the conference, and I suppose fluttered her eyelashes---who knows.

The officer seemed sympathetic and said that perhaps he could let her off with a warning, but he should see the ownership and insurance documents first. The woman got the documents from the glove compartment and handed them over.

After studying the documents, the officer said that the ownership was OK but the insurance had expired. He was sorry but he would have to issue a speeding ticket plus a ticket for driving without a valid insurance certificate.

He told her how much the combined fine would be. She cringed a little and promised herself that she would give her son a bit of her mind about not keeping his insurance up-to-date. But in the meantime, she could get back on the road.

When she started to put the car in gear, the police officer shook his head. She couldn't drive an uninsured car, she would have to get a garage to tow the car away. She could have the car back when  she had a valid insurance certificate.

At that point the woman called her friend's cell phone. The friend, who was in the conference that had already started, agreed to leave right away and pick her up in Virgil.

The moral is, when nearing Virgil, watch for the speed limit signs and sloooooow down.

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See you on November 14th for Posting #95 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@gmail.com.