POSTING #154

THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS

Last weekend, after more than six years of planning, the re-enactments of the Battle of Queenston Heights and the Burial of General Brock took place.

The email below, addressed to the two Federal Ministers involved in supporting the 1812 Bicentennial, mirrors what seems to have been the reaction of most of the 15,000 people who attended the events.

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From: Family Near
Subject: 200th Anniversary Battle of Queenston Heights: Well Done Parks Canada and The Ministry of Canadian Heritage

Dear Honourable Ministers Kent and Moore:

I am writing to congratulate both your Departments for the outstanding commemorative ceremonies that marked the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Queenston Heights and the death of Major General Isaac Brock, which took place this past weekend (13-14 Oct) at Niagara on the Lake / Queenston, Ontario.

Our family drove from Kanata, Ontario to Queenston Heights and the town of Niagara on the Lake specifically to see and participate in this event, and we were not disappointed!  Indeed, we were immensely impressed with the manner in which Parks Canada, the Friends of Fort George and the Ministry of Canadian Heritage planned and oversaw both the re-enacted Battle of Queenston Heights on the Saturday, followed on Sunday by the sombre "funeral" procession and entombment of MGen Brock and his ADC LCol John Macdonnell, at Fort George.

The planning and organization required to effect this commemoration must have been immense, involving as it did more than a thousand re-enactors representing British regulars, Canadian Militia and US forces.  However, I can assure you, Honourable Ministers, that the combined efforts of your staffs and the Friends of Fort George, was superb in every respect.  Certainly, the 15,000 people who attended this re-enactment were provided with a tremendous visual and emotional Canadian historical experience, along with an appreciation that the bravery and sacrifices made in 1812 are what allowed the Canada of today to exist!   It was also gratifying to see attendance by a large number of civic officials from all levels of Government, including the Minister of Justice (Hon Rob Nicholson)

So, well done to both your Departments, with special kudos to Parks Canada for their appreciation of Canadian history and their ability to make it come alive!   I feel that my taxpayer dollars have been very well spent here!

Yours sincerely
Robert Near
29 Cheltonia Way,
Kanata, Ontario, K2T1G6

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Unfortunately, I missed the whole thing!

I had volunteered to be on Queenston Heights in my 1812 costume to help direct the crowds, and was really looking forward to all the “pomp and circumstance”.

Then a few days before the weekend, I fell ill and had to withdraw.

Oh well, there are several important events next year, such as the Battle of Fort George, and the Occupation and Burning of the Town.

Health permitting, I will be there!

000

WHAT TO DO ABOUT DRIVERS WHO TAILGATE?

The Queen Elizabeth Way (the QEW---which our GPS insists on called ‘Cue’) is getting more and more congested. Impatient drivers do stupid and dangerous things such as speeding excessively (come on, we all speed a bit, but anything over 130 KMS is ridiculous) and weaving in and out of lanes without warning.

And tailgating!

We were lucky to have escaped several near-accidents recently, in each case with some idiot right on our tail. If there had been an accident, the tailgater would have ended up inside---or on top of--- our car.

I was reminded of a BBC program from the 1960s on safe driving. British roads at the time were more than a bit treacherous. There were three-wheeled Messerschmitt cars chugging along at 30 miles an hour and Jaguars whipping past them at 100 plus MPH. You never knew what you would encounter around the next bend.

After a few horrendous accidents, the BBC decided to do some research on safer driving.

One of the experts on the program was the popular British racing driver, Stirling Moss who, Wikipedia notes, was called "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship". I remember three things about the program. One was Moss’s description of how to handle curves at high speed: hit the brakes going into the curve and then accelerate like hell coming out of it.

The second was his description of how he relaxed after a day of racing. He had a hot water tank in his London apartment that kept the water at precisely his favourite bath temperature. As he got close to his apartment, he could flick a switch in the car and his bathtub would fill automatically. In the pre-electronic age of the 1960s, that was impressive. Once at home, he stripped off his clothes and jumped into a soothing tub.

The third thing I remember was the program’s advice on how to deal with tailgaters: you should slow down so as to increase the space between your car and the car ahead. This would provide a ‘cushion’ of space in case the car ahead had to stop suddenly. In that event, you could slow down gradually so the idiot tailgater wouldn’t end up in your glove compartment.

The program also said that slowing down would make it easier for the tailgater to overtake you and be on his/her way.

The slowing down has always seemed to me to be good advice but some tailgaters---obviously infuriated by the widened gap between us and the car ahead---press in even closer to our car.

A friend deals with that problem by turning on his windshield washers. The airstream carries some of the washer liquid over his car and onto the windshield of the tailgater. The problem is that at 100 KMS, I am not sure how safe it is to distract the person who is breathing down your neck.

In England in the 1960s, a Canadian friend with a British-born wife had another solution. The wife printed a large sign with the word ‘NIT’ on it---NIT being short for ‘nitwit’ and British for 'idiot'. Whenever anyone followed her and her husband too closely, she showed the sign through the back window.

I’m not sure that holding up a sign that said something like ‘IDIOT’ would work too well in Canada (or the US!). The result would probably be a classic case of road rage.

By the way, that British-born wife was (and is) a very skilled knitter. After they returned to Canada, she was asked by the Canadian Government to knit a sweater that was later presented to Prince Charles during one of his visits to Canada.

After that, we all referred to her as the Royal (K)nit.

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The US Presidential Election is heating up and I expect that the Icewine Guru will soon have something to say. http://theicewineguru.blogspot.ca/