INTRODUCTION

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“The universe is made of stories, not atoms” (Muriel Rukeyser)

Every family has its universe of stories and this weekly blog, LETTER FROM VIRGIL, will recount some of our family’s stories.

The blog is intended primarily for our grandchildren who must wonder sometimes what kind of weird galaxy the fates have dropped them into. Perhaps the stories will help them find their place in it.

Although the blog is aimed at our family, we would be happy if others in the blogosphere enjoy the stories. We would love to hear from you.

Each posting will start with a few lines about things my wife, Pat, and I have done in the previous week in our new home in the Village of Virgil---a few kilometers from Niagara-on-the-Lake.

But the bulk of each posting will be stories from the past.

The stories won’t be organized in any particular way. We will let them flow the way stories flow after a hearty family dinner as someone says, “Do you remember the time…” And after that story someone else says, “That reminds me of the time…”

Now, here are a few stores.

Where was I?

One of our sons likes to tell bedtime stories about our family dog, Cassidy, a Golden Cocker Spaniel with an attitude. (When we went to choose a dog at the breeders, 3 black pups came running to the door. Then, a little ball of yellow fluff came bounding into the hall, chased by a little girl screaming, “Mom, Cassidy peed on my piano music.” Of course, we had to have Cassidy.)

After our son had finished his story about one of Cassidy’s misadventures, our granddaughter, who was just two and a half, asked her Dad, “Where was I then?”

“You were nowhere.”

“Oh”, she said.

The next night, she asked her father to tell the same story. Afterwards, she said, “And where was I?”

“You were nowhere.”

The daughter spat out, “I somewhere now”.

(Later on, she sorted out to her own satisfaction where she had been when Cassidy was doing his thing. She was on a shelf in a ‘baby store’, waiting for Mommy and Daddy to take her home.)

Father and the Yankees

In the early 1950s, my father who was an officer with the Ontario Provincial Police received a two-way radio for his police car.

There were many obvious advantages to having an easy means to contact his district office. He no longer had to search out a public phone box or a friendly resident to call for help when there was an accident.

But there were downside issues as well.

Dad had to learn the now-familiar “10” series of commands, “10-4” etc.

Once during a thunderstorm, his car was hit by lightning. He and the car were fine but the radio was literally fried.

Another problem was that reception was sometimes poor because of the way radio signals bounced off the atmosphere in certain types of weather. One time, Dad was trying to call his District Office in Mount Forest from his base in Arthur, a distance of perhaps 15 miles.

The messages from Mount Forest were repeatedly interrupted by chatter from another police force somewhere in the U.S. Finally, Dad shouted, “You will have to repeat your message. The Yankees are interfering.”

There was a pause and then a clear voice with a southern drawl came through. “This is the Kentucky State Police. We are sorry for your problems but we want y’all to know that we are NOT Yankees.”

(A couple of years ago I was guilty of showing a similar lack of sensitivity to southerners. Browsing in a South Carolina bookstore, I noticed that the section that in Canada would be labeled ‘Civil War’ was called ‘The War of Northern Aggression’. On the way out I complimented the owner on his sense of humour. He glared at what I assumed he saw as another stupid Yankee.)

TEA WITHOUT MILK

In 1996, my interpreter and I were waiting at a Moscow airport for an Aeroflot flight to Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Russian Republic of Buryatia located on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal.

The Russian officials with whom I was working to improve the nation’s employment services had recommended that the existing employment office in Ulan-Ude be converted into a model office, using best Canadian practices. My job was to check out the existing office and decide whether the office and staff had the potential to become a model office. If the answer was ‘yes’ I would arrange for a team of Canadian experts to visit the office.

The flight was delayed and the interpreter and I went to a food bar for a snack. I had been in Russia for about a year and although my Russian was still pretty basic it was good enough to order food. I asked for a sweet bun and a cup of tea and the waitress banged them down in front of me. As I was reaching for my money, I saw a container of milk by the cash register.

Now, I should interject that while I can drink tea straight (and I did each day at my Moscow office---the tea-trolley babushka had a samovar but no milk) I much prefer it with milk and sugar.

Seeing the milk carton, I asked if I could have some milk in my tea. The waitress exploded with some machine-gun Russian, the only word of which I could catch was ‘Nyet’. .There was a great deal of laughter from nearby tables and from my interpreter. In fact, he was laughing so hard I thought his tea and bun were going to end up on the floor.

Back at the table, the interpreter asked, “Did you understand what the waitress said?”

“No, it was too fast. What did she say? What’s so funny?”

“She said, ‘You don’t put milk in tea, idiot’”.

(The irony was that when we arrived at Ulan-Ude we were met by a few Russian officials and a group of Buryats, descendants of the Mongolian people, in national costume. A Russian leaned over to say that the Buryats would be offering me their national drink and it would be politic to appear to enjoy it.

“Just have a sip or two. It’s tea with milk, ”, he whispered, with distain,”

People watched as I tasted the tea---there was milk but also some salt. I enjoyed it and had a second cup.

The story is that the tea was the secret to the success of Genghis Khan and his warriors.)

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HONEYMOON EXCITEMENT

Pat and I were married in Aurora, Ontario and our honeymoon was spent at a summer cottage on Ice Lake on Manitoulin Island.

Pat had worked as a chauffeur for the family during her university vacations and they invited us to use the cottage for our honeymoon. The family arranged for the local person who looked after the cottage during the winter to open it for us, put on the screens, clean out the cobwebs and do all the other things necessary after a long winter.

There was the large main cottage, built in the 1800s, and several cabins. We decided to sleep in the cabin that Pat had used during her summers with the family. We gathered sheets and pillows from the cottage and made the bed.

After a dinner in the screened porch overlooking the lake, and a quiet paddle in the canoe we went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Pat suddenly screamed.

“ A mouse just ran up my face and went up there”, pointing to the unfinished wall of the cabin.

I sat up ready to do battle with the varmint that had harassed my new wife.

And the bed collapsed.

We and the mattress ended on the floor, looking up at the side rails of the bed.

We got up, anchored the slats in the bed, hoisted the mattress up, re-made the bed, and checked to make sure the mouse had left us.

It took a good bit of time to get back to sleep what with the shock of the mouse and the collapse of the bed but when you are newly married time can be your friend.

(Many years later, Pat and I were staying at a hotel in Genting Highlands, in Malaysia where I was giving a training seminar. I visited the bathroom in the middle of the night and found a huge cockroach, perhaps 3 or 4 inches long in the whirlpool bathtub. I knew Pat would be upset if she saw it so I crept back into the room, grabbed one of my shoes, returned to the bathroom and tried to club the beast. Now, some cockroaches we have met at hotels have been lethargic because of pesticides they have been fed but this fellow was fast.

Pat finally shouted, “What are you doing?”

Just then the cockroach slipped down the drain.

The next morning we moved to a different floor and had no more problems.)

POSTING #71

  

PLEASE NOTE

The next posting (#72) will not be available until June 6, 2010.

This lull in the postings is not because I am running out of stories---there are lots of tales clamoring to be told.

Unfortunately, there are also many tasks that have been neglected while I have been having fun writing stories.

Duty calls---it is time to tackle those tasks.

I will bring them up to date and see you again on June 6th!

In the meantime, new readers might like to browse through some of the early postings.

Just a thought.

See you soon.

John

000

Of Russian Restaurants and Ramps

This week, I had a static-filled landline-phone conversation with Yuri (not his real name) in Moscow---he had been the office manager for our Russian project.

Frustrated by the poor quality of the call,  he asked whether I belonged to Skype. I said that we had just signed up for the free internet voice and video service. He said he had recently joined as well. 

The next day we had our first 'face-to-face' Skype conversation through our computers--with excellent sound and full colour.

It was wonderful. It brought back such memories, just to see him push his glasses up on his nose, and pause and wrinkle his brow as he searched for the exact English word for the punch line of a story he was telling.

I know, I know, you are saying what's the big deal about Skype.

You have been using Skype for ages and ages.

You used it to keep in touch with your children on that African safari.

And you talk every week with your granddaughter in Tasmania.

Good for you.

But some of  us march to a slower drummer----technologically speaking, at least.

000

During our conversation, Yuri and I laughed about some restaurant experiences we had shared during the Russian project (1995-1997).

In 1996, we were 8000 kms east of Moscow in Blagoveshchensk, a city on the Amur River that separates Russia and China.

Blagoveshchensk and Heihe,  its Chinese twin on the other side of the Amur River, had decided that it would be helpful economically to develop a kind of free trade zone encompassing the two cities. Tourists travelling on the Trans Siberian Railway could break their journey and visit the two cities, while people touring China could nip into Russia for a day trip.

Beijing agreed with the proposal and Heihe built hotels, restaurants and nightclubs to accommodate the anticipated visitors. The Kremlin agreed in principle with the idea but dragged its feet, which angered the folks of  Blagoveshchensk.

The only cross-border initiative that I could see in Blagoveshchensk was a Chinese restaurant in our hotel.

In the restaurant, the waiters were all Russian---no Chinese faces at all. That was strange.

Looking at the menu, which was in both Russian-English (a concession to future tourists), I decided to play it safe and order chop suey.

Yuri passed on my order to the waiter, who spoke only Russian.

There was a brief discussion between Yuri and the waiter and then Yuri asked, "Would you like French fries with your chop suey?"

"No, just rice", I replied.

Yuri passed that on to the waiter and  a long, rapid-fire Russian discussion ensued.

Finally, Yuri turned to me, "Well, this is something unique. We are in what must be the only Chinese restaurant in the world that doesn't serve rice."

"No rice!", I said in disbelief.

"No rice, just fries."

As it turned out the fries were the best part of the meal. The chop suey was a brownish mix of over-cooked vegetables and strange bits of gristle and meat.

The episode reminded me of our time in the North of England (19960-1963) when Chinese and Indian restaurants appealed to the locals by offering fries (chips) with their meals---this was sometimes referred to as 'Chips with Everything'.

But, the English restaurants always served rice as well!

000

On another trip we were having dinner in a restaurant in Ulyanovsk---the birth place of Lenin, on the Volga River.

Ulyanovsk was slow to acknowledge that communism was dead---that the future would involve some kind of market economy. And some of the residents weren't quite sure about the fine points of how a free enterprise business should treat its customers.

They also didn't try very hard to hide their dislike for Westerners---we were still seen as the enemy.

I ordered a traditional Russian dinner and asked if I could have a beer.

Yuri translated my request and the waiter shook his head.

Yuri said, "There is no beer. A Chinese delegation came through a few weeks ago and drank all the beer."

I pointed out that every corner store in Russia sold beer, Why couldn't the restaurant staff go to one of the stores and get some beer?

Yuri passed on my question.

The answer was that the restaurant had to order its beer from an authorized supplier, and the beer could take weeks to come.

The waiter added something and Yuri translated, "The waiter wants to know whether you would like some Fanta. He says that you sell it to them and you should drink it."

He assumed that I was an American and that I would enjoy the sweet carbonated fruit drink that Coca-Cola was selling around the world---spreading civilization, so to speak.

I had tried Fanta---once.

I ordered some bottled water.

At the end of the meal---which was OK---the waiter brought the bill.

As always, Yuri examined it closely to make sure that we Westerners weren't being taken advantage of.

After nodding in agreement with most of the items on the bill, he burst out laughing as he got to the bottom of the bill.

"I've never seen anything like this!"

The waiter came over and there was a discussion in Russian.

"What's going on", I finally asked.

"Can you see here, " Yuri said pointing to the bottom of the bill, "they have charged us three rubles for the bill."

"I don't understand. For the bill?"

"Yes, they are charging us for this piece of paper", Yuri said as he waved the bill.

It was only the equivalent of a few cents, so we paid it.

As we left, we joked that the restaurant should start charging for the use of the chairs.

The experience was a small indication of the problems that Russia would have in making  the shift from a communist system to a market economy.

000

POSTSCRIPT

It is important to stress that I am describing experiences that happened 15 years ago when Russia was in the midst of its economic transformation.

A friend who has just returned from a tour of Russia tells me that everything has changed, including the restaurants. He said that he and his wife ate very well during the tour.

An interesting point. He said that sushi bars were enormously popular in Moscow, so popular that even Italian restaurants were offering the Japanese delicacies!

000

Staying with the theme of restaurants, a visitor from the US was telling us recently about the movement to use more local products in American restaurants. She described a meal in Massachusetts that included fiddle heads and ramps.

Ramps?

She explained that ramps looked like green onions and are collected in the woods in early spring.

I said that ramps sounded like what we in Arthur called 'leeks' (later on, when we lived in Ottawa we heard people using the term 'wild leeks'---farmers sold bottles of pickled wild leeks on the side of the road).

Good old Google confirmed that ramps and wild leeks are indeed one and the same. Click here for more information on ramps.)

The Google article has a warning:

" The flavor and odor of ramps is usually compared to a combination of onions and garlic, and the garlic odor is particularly strong. Strong enough, in fact, that even ramp-lovers will advise caution. If you sit down to a big meal of ramps, don't be surprised if people continue to keep their distance after a few days have passed!"

I don't know the nationality of the writer but the description of the smell of ramps is a classic case of British understatement!

Every spring the poor teachers in our public school had to cope with kids who had been to the woods for a feed of wild leeks.

The odour of garlic is unpleasant for a circle of, say, 6 to 8 feet around the breather. The stench of wild leeks from one student would fill a whole classroom and leave the teacher and students gagging.

The solution was to send the offender home with a note telling the parents to keep him there until the wild leeks were out of his system---by the way, it was always boys, never girls!

Then the teacher would throw open all the windows and air the classroom for the rest of the day.

I suppose that cooking the wild leeks diminishes somewhat the potency of the odour but I have trouble imagining that people would eat ramps/wild leeks more than once.

Surely, their relatives, friends and neighbours would rebel.

000

Another facet of the wild leeks story.

Cows loved to eat them, but the taste and odour was passed through to the milk. The people in our local dairy and creamery had to sniff each can of milk or cream delivered by a farmer to make sure it didn't have the wild leek odour.

Even a cup of contaminated milk could ruin a whole batch of milk or butter.

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See you on June 6th for Posting #72 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 #70

Some Stories from My Brother Jim

My brother Jim, who lives in Milton, Ontario with my sister-in-law Fannie, has a fund of good stories. Here are a couple of my favourites.

In the early part of the 1930s, Dad, who was a traffic officer with the Ontario Provincial Police, was transferred from Bronte, Ontario to Palermo, a community at the junction of Highways 5 and 25, in what is now the north-west corner of Oakville.

Our family, which consisted of Mom, Dad and Jim (Charles---Chuck---and I had not yet made an appearance) rented a house near a farm owned by Russell (Russ) and Annie Fox, a friendly, hardworking couple.

Jim who was about 4 or 5 at the time was fascinated by the farm and wandered over as often as he could to watch Russ and the hired man---an English immigrant who lived with Russ and Annie---handle the many chores involved in running a hundred acre mixed farm.

Russ and Annie didn't have any children of their own and they enjoyed having the talkative, outgoing lad around.

One day, Jim was watching the hired man forking manure into the manure spreader. The strong farmyard odours didn't seem to bother Jim at all.

Once the spreader was full, the hired man hitched the team of Percheron horses to it and prepared to set off for a back field.

Jim asked if he could ride with the hired man on the seat at the front of the manure spreader.

At first, the hired man refused but Jim persisted. Finally the hired man relented and helped Jim scramble up on the seat.

The hired man told the horses to 'gaddup' and off they went to the back of the farm.

Jim felt good. The sun was out, he was riding behind a team of horses, and he had a fresh stick of gum in his mouth. He was about as happy as a kid could be.

Coming to a gate, the hired man got down off the spreader to open it. Just as he got the gate opened, something spooked the horses and they bolted ahead.

Caught unaware by the sudden movement, Jim was thrown backwards and ended up face down in the manure.

The hired man chased after the team and finally got them stopped.

Terrified that Jim had been hurt, the hired man pulled him out of the manure, saying repeatedly, "Are you alright?", as he brushed away at the manure on Jim's face and clothes.

When Jim had caught his breath he said he was OK but added, "I was afraid I'd lost my gum."

When Russ, a generally easy-going person, heard what had happened he was horrified and furious. He fired the hired man on the spot and told him to clear off---leave the farm.

This was in the midst of the depression when there were no jobs. Although Russ couldn't pay much, he provided first-class room and board (Annie was an excellent cook), The English immigrant was going to have a tough job finding another job.

The hired man, his head down, set off for the house to pack his things.

Russ looked at the man and then called out to him. They had a chat and Russ re-hired him.

Jim's comment, "I was afraid I'd lost my gum." soon spread around the community.

I wonder if that calm and humorous response didn't play a role in Russ's change of mind about firing the hired man.

000

There is a sequel to the story. The hired man eventually left farming, and joined the OPP He had a long and good career with the force.

000

In 1935, the OPP transferred Dad once again, this time to Arthur---where I was born the following year, and Chuck in 1939.

My parents stayed friends with Russ and Annie, visiting them frequently. Jim looked forward to these visits since they gave him a chance to wander around the farm again.

When Jim was about 11 or 12, he started spending the summer holidays on the farm, helping Russ.

One summer, Russ had to go to help a relative on another farm. He told Jim that he should just take the day off, that he had been working hard and could use the rest.

Jim had another idea.

He had heard Russ talk about the need to spread some manure on one of the fields but they hadn't been able to get around to it. Jim decided that he would harness the horses and spread the manure, and he sorted out a plan in his mind.

You know, words can sometimes make difficult things sound really simple.

Here was a 12 year-old lad, small for his age (he later sprouted) with only the limited amount of farming knowledge that he had picked up from watching and helping Russ.

The two Percheron horses probably each weighed around 1900 pounds and were about 17 hands high (that's almost 6 feet high---I had to check). Jim probably weighed about a hundred pounds, soaking wet.

To harness the horses, he first had to lift a heavy collar over the head of each of them. Next he had to attach leather straps called traces to the collars and then to the whippletree, a bar behind the team that pivots and swings to let a team pull a more balanced load.

And then he had to attach the reins so he could guide the horses.

This isn't at all a full description of what is involved in harnessing a team of horses but it will give you some idea of the challenge it must have presented to a 12 year old.

Percherons are noted for their calm disposition but they have huge feet. Imagine what would have happened if one of them had fidgeted and accidentally stepped on one of Jim's feet!

When the team was harnessed, Jim backed them up to the manure spreader, hitched them to it and then drove them to the manure pile so he could fork on a load of well-rotted manure.

Jim hadn't told Annie what he was doing but she saw him getting ready to head for the back of the farm. She ran out with a camera and snapped a picture (see below), showing Jim with his railway engineer's cap set at a no-nonsense-this-is-serious-business angle, all set to spread some manure.

He spread the manure, came back, unharnessed the horses and fed them.

Annie, Russ and their friends were astounded that a twelve-year old, especially one who hadn't been raised on a farm, had taken on that task, and pulled it off.

As for Jim, hr felt good about what he had done but he wasn't surprised. After all, he had planned it all out and after that it was just a matter of putting the plan into action.

000

Keeping with today's theme, I wonder if you would let me finish with two jokes about politicians and manure?

The first one is about Tommy Douglas, considered by many to be the father of the Canadian Medicare system.

Douglas was scheduled to speak to a group of farmers in rural Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, when he got to the site of the speech, he found that there was no platform. This was a problem for Douglas who was more than a little vertically challenged.

Spotting a manure spreader, he asked the people to crowd around.

After he had scrambled up on the wagon, he began his speech by saying that this was the first time he had ever stood on his opposition's platform.

000

The other joke, concerns Margaret Truman the daughter of US president, Harry Truman, a man who was known for his earthy language.

Margaret complained to her mother that she should do something to stop Harry from using the word 'manure' in company---it was embarrassing.

Bess sighed deeply and replied, "Dear, it took me twenty years to get him to say 'manure'.

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See you next Sunday for Posting #71 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