POSTING #148

CATCHING UP

The last few weeks have been crazy here but there is a lull at the moment and it gives me a chance to tell a few stories.

Declaration of War

On June 18, 1812, US President James Madison signed a declaration of war against the United Kingdom and its dependencies (e.g. Upper Canada). Many historical documents are lengthy and boring but the declaration of war is neither. I think it is useful to read it and realize just how threatened Upper and Lower Canada were in June of 1812. (Click to enlarge.)

For several years, legions of Niagara-on-the-Lake volunteers have been preparing to commemorate that event. They’ve been attending lectures on the history of the war, and on matters such as the dress and menus of the time, and, above all, they’ve been planning and organizing.

And now, all that preparation is being put to the test.

And the community is more than passing the test!

There were many activities in the days around June 18th, but I will focus on only a few of them.

The Brock Ball 

History (or legend) has it that word of the declaration of war reached Niagara-on-the-Lake several days after Madison signed it. A breathless messenger burst into a dinner being hosted by General Brock at the Officers Mess at Fort George, and announced to the General and his guests (British and Canadian officers, along with American officers from Fort Niagara) that war had been declared.

General Brock thanked the messenger and then told his guests that he was not prepared to have a declaration of war interfere with a fine dinner. Fighting could start the next day. He led his British and Canadian guests in a singing of God Save the King, while the Americans toasted President Madison.

The guests resumed their eating and drinking.

At the end of the meal, General Brock escorted the Americans to their boats for the short trip across the Niagara River to Fort Niagara. He shook hands with them and is supposed to have said that although they were parting as friends, the next time they met it would be as enemies.

Our Museum, the Niagara Historical Society Museum, decided to organize a re-enactment of that dinner on June 16, 2012 (a few days before anniversary of the signing of the declaration of war, but who is counting). There were 200 tickets sold, mostly to people from the Niagara area but there were guests from around Ontario and a few from the US, for example there were guests from Tennessee and Pennsylvania. The Ontario Lieutenant Governor and various federal, provincial and local officials also attended.

Pat and I travelled to Fort George in a horse and carriage, which we shared with a couple from Toronto, Don and Kathy.

Here is how we looked as we prepared to enter the tent for the dinner.

This picture is courtesy of Ruth Bolton.

 If you will permit me, I would like to say a word or two about our costumes. 

Pat is wearing an outfit, which she made herself working from an1812 pattern. The russet-coloured linen dress is Empire Style trimmed with satin ribbons on the sleeves and under the bodice, and has many deep pleats in the back of the skirt. It is ankle length at the front and dips to floor-length at the back. Note the bell-shaped finish at the elbow. Because this was a formal occasion, Pat also wore an ‘over-dress’ with a taffeta bodice and chiffon skirt.

In 1812, women in Upper Canada attending a formal dance or dinner would wear a small tiara in their hair or a band to which they attached a feather arrangement. Pat chose the feather arrangement. Her jewellery was typical of the period: long, dangling earrings, an amber necklace and an amethyst broach. She carried a black-beaded feticule (a small purse) and an antique fan with a russet tassel.

My dress is formal Scottish from the period. I had originally planned to wear a kilt but found that the wool scratched me something awful. Instead, I opted for what the Scots call ‘trews’, trousers made from the family tartan, which some experts believe predate the kilt. A Toronto firm imported Hunter tartan material from Britain and tailored the trews, lining the legs so the wool didn’t make me feel itchy. My top half consists of a dress shirt, with studs, black tie, a waistcoat and a Prince Charlie jacket (the 17th century Prince Charlie!).

Here is my non-formal 1812 costume, if you are interested. (I should point out that we1812 volunteers are encouraged to select a persona. My persona is that of a retired surveyor, while Rick is playing a Methodist minister, Tom a sheriff and so on.) Here is my concept of what a retired surveyor would wear when he came to town in the summer.

Notice the 'drop-front' cotton trousers. There were no 'flies' in 1812, just lots of buttons. One doesn't leave bathroom calls to the last minute. Pat found the cane in a local antique shop. I have a green wool frock coat, with tails, for cooler weather.

Getting back to the Brock Ball, two hundred of us assembled in a huge tent inside Fort George. The weather was perfect and the sides of the 100 foot long tent were rolled up.
 

Volunteers from the Niagara Horticultural Society prepared elaborate flower arrangements for each of the tables. Some old friends from Grimsby were among the volunteers. Pat kept the spirits of the volunteers up with coffee, tea and treats. In the background one can see Fort George's palisades.

And we began to eat and drink--- and eat and drink, and eat and drink, etc. etc.

Chefs from the Queen's Landing Hotel prepared this menu from 1812 recipes. Every item on the menu was brought to the tables, platter after platter. Sorry about the wine stains---I think it was the Port at the end of the meal. (Click to enlarge.)

After each course, we stood up, walked around, listened to a quartet from Music Niagara and talked.

Part way through the meal, a breathless messenger broke in and shouted to ‘our’ General Brock that war had been declared. The good General told us to continue dining. We sang God Save the King and it is possible that some of the (few) Americans present toasted President Madison but I didn’t see them.

In 1812, dinners began with three or four tablecloths placed on top of each other. There were no dinner napkins, so the guests wiped their hands and mouths on the table cloth. After each course the servers removed the top, soiled, tablecloth.

In our case, we were provided with napkins for the first two courses. Then the napkins and the top table cloth were removed. For the last courses, we did what the 1812ers did---wiped our hands and mouths on the table cloth. It was an odd experience.

Dinner began at 6 PM and we finally struggled (waddled?) off home between 11 and 12.

A wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime, experience!


Fort George

On June 18th we went with some visiting relatives to Fort George for the official commemoration of the Declaration of War. Parks Canada and the Friends of Fort George put on a fine show with a fife and drum concert, Native American drumming, hoop dancing and singing, followed by musket and cannon firing. The evening ended with the world premiere of a spectacular sound and light production about the War of 1812. The sound and light show will be shown at the Fort on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays from mid-July to October.

My cousins said they enjoyed the show mightily but the one from Saskatchewan couldn’t get used to the fact that as we walked around the Fort it wasn’t necessary to watch for gopher holes.


The Tall Ships Are Coming

Since moving to Virgil, we have learned that if we have to get to an appointment in St. Catharines or Grimsby during the Welland Canal season it is better to cross the canal via the Skyway Bridge. If we aren’t in a rush it is more fun to cross the canal at one of the locks, in hopes that a bridge will be up and we will have a chance to watch as one of the ocean-going vessels or an enormous ‘laker’ threads its way carefully into a lock.

The other evening we were coming home via the Carleton Lock and struck gold.  Coming toward the lock was a tall ship with young men and women standing on the deck and hanging from the riggings.

Tall ship just entering the Carleton Lock on its way from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

We couldn't catch the name of the ship,but the flag flying from the top of the centre mast said, “Never Surrender the Ship”. We assume the ship will be taking part in The Navy of 1812: Sailors on the Lakes event which is being held on July 14 and 15 near Fort George. There will be 5 tall ships (4 Brigantines and a schooner-1812 Squadron) and 22 longboats with 300 naval re-enactors.

Yet another 1812 event!

For a full list of upcoming events, please check out NOTL's Bicentennial website.

The Tragically Hip

The popular Kingston Ontario band, The Tragically Hip, held two concerts in Niagara-on-the-Lake--- on Friday, June 29th and Saturday, June 30th. Not being great rock fans, we decided to give the concerts a pass.

On Saturday night our curiosity got the better of us. How were the organizers (and the town!) going to cope with the 20,000-30,000 fans who were expected?

Along with hundreds of ‘eavesdroppers’ we found a spot near the VIP entrance and settled in to watch (through gaps in the fence) and listen.

It is not our taste in music but the fans obviously loved it.

Staid old Niagara-on-the-Lake will never be the same.




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Note:

I hope that the next Letter from Virgil will appear in a couple of weeks, but things are still hectic so I can’t promise that.

There is a new Posting (#9) in the companion Icewine Guru Blog, in which the Guru offers his comments on the US Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He is feeling a little smug since he predicted the Court would find the health care legislation constitutional. The Guru also makes some startling comments about the possible outcome of the US presidential election.

POSTING #147

APOLOGIES ARE IN ORDER

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to prepare a Posting for May 27th as I had promised.

As we used to say in Arthur after a tough hockey game, I was ‘out of poof’.

Preparations for the War of 1812 Bicentennial, and some family activities completely overwhelmed me and I just wasn’t able to focus on the blog.

The next few months are going to be hectic as we mark the Declaration of War in mid-June and then get ready to commemorate the Battle of Queenston Heights and the death of General Brock in October.

Given all of that, I think it is unrealistic for me to try to have a new Posting each Sunday between now and mid-October.

However, I have a long list of blog subjects, and whenever I have some spare time I will upload a Posting.

You may wish to log on from time to time to see if there is anything new. Or, if you wish you could give me your email address and I will send you a note whenever a new Posting is uploaded. johnpathunter@gmail.com.

We'll see you from time to time this summer!

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I tried to find the expression ‘out of poof’ in some dictionaries, but no luck. I decided it must be an ‘Arthurism’ but then Google found this comment from a woman in a support forum for pregnant women:

“anyone else huffin and puffin when they're fairly active?

i'm so out of poof! i wish i lived in a rambler. house work day, up and down the stairs, vacumming, and laundry and cleaning the kitchen with steam mop and dishes. nothing out of the ordinary, or too strenuous, but i felt out of breath by the end of it. i gotta lay off those potato chips.. i'm sweatin' like a sinner in church.

anyone else struggling with daily activies while pregnant?”

Google is fun!!

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Note:

In Posting #8 in the companion Icewine Guru Blog, the Guru offers his prediction on the US Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.ca/

POSTING #146

“YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN”
(Title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe.)

A week ago we were in Richmond Hill buying clothes for my Bicentennial 1812 ‘persona’ (I am going to be a retired surveyor who was born in Scotland in 1736, immigrated with his family to Philadelphia, trained there as a surveyor, then left the US after the 1776 revolutionary war to settle in Niagara, in Upper Canada. A future Posting will describe the clothes Pat and I will be wearing, and include some photos---you won’t want to miss that!)

After we had finished at the period-clothing shop and had had lunch we decided to carry on to Aurora to see how Pat’s hometown had changed, and most importantly, to have a look at the house in which she had spent her teenage years, at 100 Kennedy St. West. (Pat spent the first years of her life in a house at 26 Yonge St. but in 1950 her parents built the house on Kennedy.)

Her mother designed the house, producing detailed sketches of both the interior and exterior, sketches that she and Pat’s dentist dad, Dr. E.J. Henderson (known as ‘Doc’or ‘Hendy’ to everyone in Aurora) pored over in the evenings in the Yonge St. house. An architect, who was mightily impressed by the drawings, smoothed out some technical issues, and work began on the house.

The house, situated in the middle of a five acre lot, was built with top class materials---carefully selected stone for the exterior and thick rich oak for the floors and stairs.

As we drove up Highway 11 from Richmond Hill, Pat recalled how her family had moved into the house when it was only partly completed, and how they had to put up with workmen under their feet as the finishing touches were installed. She particularly remembered the incessant noise of carpenters driving walnut pegs into the thick and wide oak floor planks.

No nails or screws---pegs! The house was built to last.

We drove around the town, saving the house to the end

Although there were many changes, Pat was impressed with how many landmarks still existed.

There was the Ardill block on the corner of Yonge and Wellington where her dad had his dental office, on the second floor. The wall on the Wellington St. side now sports a huge two-story high “Oh Canada’ mural depicting figures from Canadian history, from Sir John A. Macdonald to Foster Hewitt and Marilyn Bell

Pat's father's dental office faced onto Wellington St., through the mural that now covers that  side of the building.

There was her public school that now seems to be a cultural centre, and the substantial protestant churches (there was no Catholic church in Aurora when Pat was growing up---Catholics had to go to Newmarket).

Pat attended the Aurora Public school from Grade 1 to Grade 7, when the school was closed and replaced with a new one. Pat took her Grade 8 at the Aurora High School. During her High School years, the old high school was closed and also replaced with a new one. The 1950s was a decade of great school construction in Ontario!

 Then we turned onto Kennedy St. West.

Pat pointed out ‘Colonel Dan’s’ house on the left as we drove along. Pat thinks that Colonel Dan had been in the military and the RCMP. He was famous to our generation as the Mountie on a horse in some of our Ontario textbooks. The house, probably built in the late 1800s or early 1900s, is being beautifully maintained.

As we drove further along Kennedy Street, Pat pointed out houses that had been replaced by new, modern, large homes. Although the old houses had had a certain early-1900s charm, they didn’t have the quiet elegance and quality of Pat’s family home. Their disappearance wasn’t a great loss to the history or culture of the town.

Pat's bedroom was behind the gable on the far left of the picture. We aren't sure when this picture was taken but the tall TV  antenna suggests that it was probably in the 1950s or 1960s.

As we got close to 100 Kennedy, we recalled that one of our sons had passed by his grandparent’s house two years ago and said that the house seemed to be in good shape and well-maintained.

There was a fairly high hedge in front of 100 so we weren’t able to get a look at the house until we stopped at the gap made by the driveway.

We looked in but didn't see Pat’s house!

Instead we saw a broad, two-story, stone-faced building with a copper turret, and a portico with pillars.

We checked the street number again. Yes, it said ‘100’.

What had happened to the house built so lovingly by Pat’s parents?

Had someone built around the old house, and incorporated it into the new dwelling?

Or, had they simply torn down Pat’s house to make room for this mansion?

The sentimental journey back to the family home had turned sour.

We headed back to Virgil, puzzled and troubled.

Some research showed us that 100 Kennedy was bought for $1.5 million in 2010 (we guess it was just after our son had seen it) and then the house was demolished.

The new dwelling was built in 2011. We don’t have a photo of it but there is a Google satellite view of the new house.

As one zooms in, it is clear that the house is huge, with a number of connected parts, one of which may be an indoor pool. In the backyard there seem to be terraces with an outdoor pool.

Further research showed that neighbouring houses have sold in the three to four million dollar range, so the new owners could afford to pay $1.5 million for the house and land, demolish the house, and build a new home without exceeding the going-price in the neighbourhood.

A millionaires’ row, indeed.

Pat’s father clearly knew what he was doing when he bought a lot on Kennedy St. West.

At first we felt annoyed, and even angry, at what the new owners had done but as we learned a little about them our view started to change. The couple is prominent in business in the area and very active in fundraising for local institutions, including the Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket.

It was just the shock, really.

And the realization that is forced upon us constantly as we age---that tempus does indeed fugit.

And what do we make of the claim in the title of Thomas Wolfe’s novel--- used as the heading for this Posting--- that “You Can’t Go Home Again”?

The answer seems to be that it IS possible to ‘go home’ but that the home you knew may not be there.

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An interesting sidebar on the story.

The new owners of 100 Kennedy West appear to own an office building on Yonge Street that is exactly on the spot (26 Yonge St.) where Pat spent the first 14 years of her life.

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See you on May 27, 2012 for Posting #147 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please drop me a line at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

In Posting #8 in the companion Icewine Guru Blog, the Guru offers his prediction on the US Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.ca/

POSTING #145

NOTE: The next Posting, #146, will appear on May 20th, not May 13th, to give me a chance to do some volunteer work on the 1812 Bicentennial celebrations and to get our yard in shape. Sorry about that!

The Golden Dog/Le Chien d’or

As in the 2007 comedy, ‘Bucket List’, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, I have my own list of things I want to do before I get hit by the Big Bus. Things like visiting some new places abroad, and re-visiting some old ones.

I also have a collection of ‘shoulds’, things that a part of me feels I ought to do before it is too late. The ‘shoulds’ aren’t on any list. Instead, they’re stuffed---by another part of me---into a big sack, helter skelter. In my mind’s eye I see the sack as having a pull-string that tries to keep the bag shut, so that my remaining days won’t be bothered by these ‘shoulds’.

One of my ‘shoulds’ for a long time has been to read the 19th Century Canadian novel, ‘The Golden Dog/Le Chien d’or’ by William Kirby. An English professor at Queen’s argued that we couldn’t claim to be literate as Canadians if we hadn’t read Kirby’s novel.

Photograph of William Kirby, with his signature, ca 1865

I looked at it, flipped through the 600 plus pages, and decided that it was something for the ‘should’ sack, not for the ‘bucket list’.

Now here we are in the Niagara region, and every time we go to the restaurant at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club (it is open to non-members, like us) we pass the house at 130 Front Street where William Kirby lived from 1857 to his death in 1906.

Plaque in front of 130 Front Street.

And we notice the plaque that tells about The Golden Dog.

And I have always felt a twinge of guilt.

A side view of 130 Front Street.

Niagara-on-the-Lake has its tourist carriages. This scene in front of the Kirby House could have been from the 1800s, except for the people's clothes---and the ‘No Parking’ sign!

But I have managed to keep those twinges of guilt under control until recently.

A few weeks ago, Pat came home from her volunteer work at the Niagara Historical Society Museum where she is helping describe the Museum’s artifacts. She talked about a plaque she had been examining that depicted the legend of The Golden Dog.

Pat is still not sure about the history of this plaque, which is designed to hang on a wall. She thinks it could have been produced in the 1970s, perhaps to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Golden Dog in 1877, or perhaps for tourists to Quebec. Her research continues. I would like to thank Sarah Maloney, Managing Director of the Niagara Historical Museum, for permission to include a photo of the Museum’s plaque.

Pat’s research had begun with questions such as when was the plaque made, by whom, probable value etc. but soon led into questions about the subject depicted on it, The Golden Dog.

At that point, my guilt got the better of me; I decided that the time had come to read the bloody novel. The Museum had a tattered copy of it on its ‘Sale’ table, which I bought.

The book, printed in 1914, has lost its back cover but all its 624 pages are intact.

I started like a swimmer going into the cold waters of the Atlantic off the coast of New England---very gingerly. But as I got immersed in the tale, I found that it was getting harder and harder to put it down.

After more than 600 pages, I didn’t want it to end.

I don’t have the time, energy, space, or (more importantly) skill to do justice to the plot of The Golden Dog or to the life of its remarkable author, William Kirby. (For more information on both, please click here for an article written by Mary Jane Edwards for ‘The Dictionary of Canadian Biography on Line’. )

Let me just sketch in a few details.

The title of the book comes from a sculpted plaque created by a farmer in 17th century France in memory of his dog, which was killed by a neighbour as part of a feud between the two farmers. The plaque showed a dog gnawing on a human bone while the words promised revenge for the killing of the dog.

A settler from the part of France where the feud had taken place had a gilded replica of the plaque placed above the doorway of his house in Quebec City. William Kirby saw the plaque on a visit to Quebec, was fascinated with its theme of revenge and decided to weave it into a novel about the turbulent period in New France before the conquest of the colony by the British in 1759. (I understand that the plaque is now mounted on a post office in Quebec City where lovers of The Golden Dog novel can photograph it.)

Using the history of the time and some Quebec folk stories he created a novel of romance, love, hate, bravery, lechery (warning: the scenes of debauchery at the Palace of the Intendant Bigot are graphic) and ultimately tragedy.

The novel moves along at a leisurely,19th century pace---think of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’---with time for rich descriptions of life in New France for the habitants and the upper classes, and some philosophising about life, but the author keeps the plot moving along with more than enough suspense to keep the reader involved.

As I read the novel I kept asking myself how Kirby, an immigrant from England with limited education, could have managed to create such a detailed tapestry of 18th century Quebec life. He wrote like a graduate from Oxford or Cambridge but wasn’t. It reminded me a little of the controversy about whether Shakespeare could have authored the plays attributed to him.

As I was finishing the novel, Pat discovered---thanks to Google---that a friend of ours whom we hadn’t seen for some time, Mary Jane Edwards, Distinguished Research Professor and director of the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) at Carleton University, was the world’s leading expert on the novel. She had just completed a scholarly edition of The Golden Dog.

I bought a copy of the new edition as soon as it was published, and found that the section on Kirby solved my question about how he managed to write The Golden Dog.

Kirby who was born in Kingston-on-Hull in England in 1817, moved in 1832 to Cincinnati with his parents---his father was a tanner by trade. William was sent to a school started by a well-educated Scottish teacher, Alexander Kinmont, who instructed his ‘scholars’ in “the various branches of Classical, Mathematical and English education”. Kirby learned to read and write in French and Latin and was challenged to study books on a variety of subjects.

After a few, obviously formative years in this school, Kirby followed his father into the tannery trade. However, in 1839 he decided to move to the Canadas because of talk in the US, from Fenians and others, about a possible invasion of the Canadas. As a strong supporter of the British monarchy, he decided to move north to help repel any invaders.

In the new edition (on the left), the novel has 755 pages, not the 624 of the version I read. In addition the new edition has several hundred pages of introduction and explanatory notes

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Mary Jane’s version includes William Kirby’s entire novel, unlike the 19th century versions, which had been abridged to reduce the cost of printing. It also includes an introduction that provides a wealth of information about the writing of the novel, the various attempts to have it published, the eventual publishing of it, the fights over royalties (Kirby's total royalties amounted to only somewhere between $100-$200!), the reception the novel has had since its publication, and on and on.

The book also includes wonderfully helpful Explanatory Notes that explain some of Kirby’s references to history, mythology and the literature of various countries.  (Happily, the notes are not flagged in the text with those annoying and distracting footnote/endnote numbers. If the reader wants more information about something on, say, page 455, it is easy to flip to the back of the book where the notes are organized by page and line.)

Although, I treasure Mary Jane’s edition, I am glad that I read the novel before reading ‘about’ it. The tale is so well told that it carried me along even though some parts of it puzzled me. Now I have the joy of going back and reading parts that weren’t in my tattered version, and re-reading the parts that puzzled me, using Mary Jane’s introduction and explanatory notes.

If I have whetted your appetite and you feel you would like to add the Golden Dog to your ‘bucket list’, I would suggest getting Mary Jane’s version, rather than reading one of the older versions. I would also suggest rushing into the story---as though you are dashing into the Atlantic---without reading the introduction. Leave that until later.

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So, the Queen’s Professor was right---as usual--- and I was wrong. I just wish, however, that he had told us that The Golden Dog would be a fun read.

I am happy that through Pat’s work at the Museum I was encouraged to pull The Golden Dog from my ‘should’ sack, and read it.

And I am so grateful that Mary Jane Edwards has poured her body and soul into this monumental edition.

In her book, Mary Jane says that she grew up with The Golden Dog. Her mother, an immigrant from Britain, discovered it when she was searching for books that would help her understand her new country. She loved the novel, re-reading it often. I am sure she would be proud of her daughter’s accomplishment.


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See you on May 20, 2012 for Posting #146 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please drop me a line at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

In Posting #8 in the companion Icewine Guru Blog, the Guru offers his prediction on the US Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.ca/

POSTING #144

Potluck Posting from Virgil

I saw a poster this week for a church dinner, and it reminded me of the potluck dinners that churches in Arthur used to hold. In honour of those dinners, here is a motley collection of stories. As with the dishes at the church dinners---casseroles, potato salads, green Jell-O salads with marshmallows, cakes, pies, butter tarts and so on--- you will probably find that some are tastier than others.

I hope you will find something you can enjoy!

A New Niagara Winery 

Last week we visited the Megalomaniac Winery, which is carved out of the rock at the crest of the Niagara Escarpment, above the town of Vineland.

Before we go on, we better deal with the name.

The highly successful but not not-at-all-bashful entrepreneur, John Howard, who made a bundle of money from the sale of Vineland Estates Winery, decided to create a new winery on the Escarpment. Here is how he explains the name:

“I originally wanted to christen these wines in my name, John Howard…and then my friends accused me of being yet another '[profanity withheld] megalomaniac'. Regrettably, the name stuck.

And so, I now produce wines called Megalomaniac. Meant to be shared with friends of equivalent or even greater egos. Pairs extremely well with delusional fantasies of wealth, power, and occasionally, omnipotence.

Enjoy.”

The entrance to the winery is through high, totally splendid oak doors.

On the left is a tiny office for placing orders, while straight ahead is the working part of the winery, with shiny stainless steel tanks, black hoses winding along the wet floor, and in the rear stacks of wooden barrels going back into the ‘cave’.

Along one wall is a tasting bar.

The man at the tasting bar had obviously picked up Howard’s penchant for extravagant overstatement. As he offered us a taste of a reserve Merlot, he intoned, “When you taste this, you will think you are an angel on the doorstep of paradise.”

The wine was actually pretty good, if not heavenly, but, at $40 a bottle, a little out of our price range.

We bought a couple of quite acceptable, and more reasonably priced, Rieslings.

As we paid for the wines, we admired a Megalomaniac Tee shirt, black with a message in large white letters, “Intimidate, don’t imitate”.

The bottle labels convey the aristocratic, wealthy image  the Megalomaniac  Winery wants to project with  the elegant gentleman, bowler hat and all.

We will go back often to sample the wines and John Howard’s ebullient---and definitely un-Canadian---hutzpah.

And the view over Lake Ontario from the winery is not too shabby either.

The Revitalized Fort George

I’ve been embarrassed in the past to recommend that friends and relatives visit ‘our’ fort, Fort George.  At first it was because it had a dilapidated air, and then it was because it was always under construction, as the Federal Government spent huge amounts of money to restore it.

No more!

The restoration process is complete and the result is outstanding. And---as planned---just in time for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812.

We took our family and a friend (13 of us---but who’s superstitious) to the Fort last weekend.

Our guide/interpreter, Sonya, seemed to draw energy and enthusiasm from the changes that have been made to the Fort. She bounded around the displays as she skillfully and objectively outlined the history of the Fort and of the War of 1812. We were convinced that her presentational skills must have come from a background with the Shaw, but, no, she had been a teacher. She is priceless!

The artifacts are authentic and not to be missed.

The tour was followed with a musket demonstration. Our two year old grandson, with his hands over his ears, grinned and jumped as the guns boomed.

We were then free to explore the Fort. The younger and more nimble members of the family, including the two year old, raced to the powder magazine, and then through a tunnel to a lookout tower. Later on, the two year old kept repeating ‘cave’ as he tried, with his eyes dancing and his hands flying, to describe the tunnel and the tower.

The Fort is now ‘two thumbs up---away up’.

It is not to be missed.

And the gift shop, just outside the Fort, is also worth a visit. It is run by a volunteer group, Friends of Fort George, and is full of high quality souvenirs (schlock not permitted), books on Canadian history, patterns for 1812 costumes, and on and on.

We will be back often.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Has a Potter’s Field

A recent article in the St. Catharines Standard shocked and angered citizens of Niagara-on-the-Lake (that includes those of us who live in Virgil---our village was incorporated into the municipality of NOTL in 1970).

We discovered that a field owned by the provincial Ministry of Transportation in the southern part of our municipality, just off the QEW, is being used as a disposal site for ‘road kill’---for animals killed on the QEW and nearby roads. Apparently, a company has a contract to collect the dead animals, take them to the field, and cover them with gravel.

Two aspects of the story troubled us. First, it seemed that some of the animals were not being properly covered. Coyotes had discovered the field and found it easy to dig through the thin layer of gravel, and feast on the dead deer, raccoons, cats and so on.

And then, a pet dog, Jeremiah (part lab), who had been missing for several months was discovered by a woman who recognized him from photos she had seen in the newspaper. Apparently, the ‘road kill’ contractors hadn’t made any effort to notify the family of the death of their pet even though the dog was wearing a tag.

We are told that the Ministry of Transportation is preparing a new protocol that will make it clear to the contractor that dead animals are to be properly covered, and that efforts must be made to notify owners of dead pets.

I am sure that it is the first time that the words ‘Niagara-on-the-Lake’ and ‘road kill’ have been used in the same story.

And we don’t like it.

It is not good for our brand!

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As a digression, after I used ‘Potter’s Field’ in the title, I decided to look up the origin of the expression. It seems to have Biblical roots.

In Matthew 27:7, the disciples discussed what to do with the thirty pieces of silver that Judas had left behind after he hung himself, out of remorse for having betrayed Jesus. The 2007 New Living Translation of the verse is:

“After some discussion they finally decided to buy the potter's field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners.”

The ‘potter’s field’ was a place where a potter would have collected the clay needed for pots, bowls, and so on. Because of the clay, the field would not have been suitable for agriculture, but would have been perfectly suitable for the burial of people.

In North American, and perhaps elsewhere, the term has, of course, been used for the places in which the indigent (and the executed) were buried.

‘The Tragically Hip’ Are Coming to Niagara-on-the-Lake!

The Kingston, Ontario band, ‘The Tragically Hip’ (or just ‘The Hip’ to aficionados) is performing on June 30 in a large park in The Old Town, near the Butler’s Barracks. Some 20,000-30,000 people are expected to listen to the band, which at last count has won 14 Juno awards.

A concert with so many people has required some compromises from our small and staid community. The organizers of the tour held a well-attended public meeting, which from all reports proceeded in a very civilized manner. As a result of the meeting and subsequent discussions in the Town Council some changes were agreed upon.

First, the Town’s noise bylaw has had to be amended so that for June 30th (and for June 30th only) it comes into effect at 11PM, instead of10 PM. One senior resident of the area said that while she really didn’t appreciate the ‘so-called music of rock groups’, she supposed she could put up with the noise for one additional hour.

Secondly, a number of streets will have to be blocked off, with most of the music lovers being bused in from parking lots outside the town. The Shaw Festival has shown commendable community spirit by cancelling one evening performance and by shifting another to an afternoon matinee.

Our War of 1812 Bicentennial Committee will have a booth at the concert, in order to give out information on the events we are planning. I can report that many of our younger volunteers have bravely offered to ‘man’ the booth, despite the ‘noise’.

A ‘Shout Out’ for a Mystery Novel

I picked up a mystery the other day at our library, ‘The Wild Beasts of Wuhan’. I saw that it was by a Canadian author, Ian Hamilton, and decided to borrow it.

The name seemed familiar, and then it came to me. He had been in Canadian Immigration when I was with the service and our paths had crossed on one or two occasions.

Now retired from the public service, Ian has been using his experience with Canadian Immigration in the Far East and elsewhere in the world to write mystery novels. He introduced his heroine, Torontonian Ava Lee, in ‘The Water Rat of Wanchai’. This novel was followed by another in the series, ‘The Disciple of Las Vegas’. ‘The Wild Beasts of Wuhan’ followed and I understand Ian has a new book about to appear.

I found ‘The Wild Beasts of Wuhan’ a really good read. Clever plot, well developed characters, and fascinating (but not excessive) descriptions of life in China today.

I am now going to read the earlier novels, starting with ‘The Water Rat of Wanchai’.

I enjoy mysteries but I have been getting a little bored lately with some popular authors who seem increasingly to be writing to a formula.

Ian Hamilton doesn’t.

If you like mysteries, you may want to give him a try.

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I hope you enjoyed this potluck posting, and that you found something as tasty as a piece of Mrs. Workman’s never-to-be-forgotten peach pie!

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See you on May 6, 2012 for Posting #145 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.

Note:
There is a new Posting (# 8) in The Icewine Guru blog. In it the Guru gives his prediction on the Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on:
http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/

POSTING #143

Scents and Nonsense

I am afraid this Posting is going to be a bit of a rant!

Perhaps you would prefer to spend the next few minutes doing something else---something useful like clipping your toe nails, sorting out tatty underwear, or polishing some silver.

I assure you, I'll understand.

To those who are still with me, I want to make it clear that I am not one of those who decries the role of chemistry in our lives.

The white-coated boffins with their test tubes have created some wonderful, life-enhancing products. Where would we be without plastics (he says as he types on a plastic keyboard, checks the words on a plastic screen, saves everything on a plastic disk etc. etc.)

 But artificial scents are something else!

In olden times, people used a mortar and pestle to mash the petals of roses, lily of the valley, lavender and other flowers, then added a little alcohol and some aromatic oils to produce perfumes.

The result was a wholesome fragrance that lifted one's spirits.

And then the chemists decided they could produce fragrances cheaper and better by using jugs of crude coil or lumps of coal. They would bombard atoms, split compounds, excite molecules---that kind of alchemist's stuff.

Society ended up with heavy, artificial perfumes and aftershave that caused people with less than perfect lungs (like yours truly) to cough and wheeze.

Then came fragrance-free zones and we could breathe again. Just another example that people are basically decent---when they saw that wearing perfume or aftershave was on a par with breaking wind in a crowd they stopped applying them.

But the chemists, having lost that battle, have shifted ground.

Now they are trying to convince us that our homes smell awful, what with cooking odours, sweaty hockey socks, and odoriferous dogs and cats. The answer, according to the chemists, is to plug in a fragrance dispenser, or go from room to room with a spray bomb.

And the chemists have also moved on to clothes. It is no longer enough that clothes should be clean. They have to smell 'right'.

Which brings me to the subject of my rant. (And not a minute too soon, I can hear someone saying.)

My wife, Pat, had just finished an elaborate, king-bed-sized quilt after several hundred hours of work. over 9 months. Now she needed to wash it and since it was too heavy for our washer and drier, she took it to a careful and responsible laundry that we have been using since our B&B days.

Some of the fabrics and threads used in the quilt are delicate so Pat gave the owner a new container of the cold water detergent that she has been using for 50 years to wash cashmere sweaters and other delicate things.

A few days later Pat picked up the quilt. It looked perfect---the colours hadn't run, the fabrics hadn't shrunk and no threads had pulled loose.

Except...

Except that the quilt smelled. It is hard to describe the odour but I suppose it was a chemist's attempt to imitate a floral fragrance that just hadn't worked. One of our friends said it was a stale smell as though the quilt had been locked away in a damp cupboard for years.

In truth, it was a thoroughly disagreeable smell, a smell, furthermore, that threatened to close my air channels whenever I got a whiff of it.

To make matters worse, the quilt had a greasy feel.

Looking for the culprit, Pat sniffed the detergent container. The scent-free detergent she had been using for decades now had a scent. The same scent as in the quilt!

The laundry re-washed the quilt, using a scent-free detergent in cold water. The odour was less but it was still too strong to have on a bed or even on a chair in the bedroom over night---we tested.

Checking on the Internet, I found that the original company had been taken over by a new firm. I suspect the new owners decided  to give the product some pizzazz by adding that horrible scent. (I wonder if Bain Capital had a role in the takeover!)

A further search led me to a support forum for athletes in which joggers, cyclists and runners complained about the new, awful scent in the detergent they had used for years to wash their spandex outfits. It was the same detergent we had used.

Pat was understandably distraught and angry, and I offered to call the manufacturer's 1-800 number to see if the company had any suggestions on how to remove THEIR scent.

I explained our problem to the 1-800 man. He said that the company no longer made a non-scent detergent. When I expressed surprise, his tone---although courteous---suggested that he thought that the next thing I would be asking for would be a car without a front seat.

Scents were a good thing. And that was that!

I asked if he could check with the company's chemists to see if they had any suggestions about how to remove the scent from our quilt.

He put me on hold for 5 minutes during which, I am sure, he was regaling the chemists in the lab with stories about this 'real one' he had on the phone.

Finally, he came back with two bits of advice. First, wash the quilt again in just cold water, with no detergent.

If that didn't work, we should send it to a dry-cleaner!

Of course, he added, we should make sure the dry-cleaning firm didn't use a scent in its chemicals.

During the whole of our conversation, he didn't apologize once. And he didn't offer to cover the dry-cleaning costs.

Pat has just taken it to a family-owned dry-cleaner and laundry that has been in business since the 1970s. The store advertises that it can safely clean delicate fabrics such as wedding dresses and heritage clothing.

After Pat explained the problem to the owner, the woman suggested that instead of dry-cleaning the quilt, she should wash it with a special, scent-free detergent that they used to remove stubborn odours.

Pat agreed, and now we wait.

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Pat has just come home with the quilt, and it is once again perfect! No scent, no greasy feel. Just a lovely quilt. What's more---it's on the bed!

This quilt is based on an old pattern called 'Grandmother's Garden', which is composed of interlocking hexagons of every colour.  Like a jazz musician, Pat has improvised on the theme, with some of the hexagons connecting while others are floating. She calls it, "This Grandmother's Quilt".

Note the hexagons.

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What is the point of this rant?

Well, it has been cathartic---I feel better.

And perhaps it will save one of our readers from the problem we fell into. Our advice is that you should be wary about using the cold water detergent that you have trusted for years. Only use a cold water detergent that says in big letters: "Scent-Free".

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See you on April 29, 2012 for Posting #144 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.

Note:
In Posting # 8 in The Icewine Guru blog, the Guru gives his prediction on the Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on  http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/

Posting #142

Pogo and Polio

The other day I was reading a collection of Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strips, when I saw that in the strip for January 16, 1950 there was a note in one of the panels: "Join the March of Dimes---Fight Infantile Paralysis".

I shuddered, and stopped reading. I thought about one of my school mates from the Arthur District High School who contracted Infantile Paralysis, later known simply as Polio. We had played hockey, marched in the school band and hung out together when suddenly, in I think 1953, he was rushed to the Hamilton General Hospital. We heard that he was in an iron lung to help him breathe but it wasn't clear whether he would survive.

Then while we waited for news on his condition, another of our high school students became ill with symptoms resembling those of polio. He was also taken to Hamilton General but his spinal tests were clear. He didn't have polio.

Everyone was grateful for that news but still worried about the first boy. Finally the news came that our friend would survive but that he would be in an iron lung for months.

My friends and I took up a collection to buy him a gift. Our first thought was a super pair of hockey pants with lots of padding. We all wore hand-me-down hockey gear in our village and we thought he would appreciate having a brand new pair of pants. We also thought, naively, that the gift might somehow motivate him to get back on his feet again.

Our parents pointed out, gently, that he would never play hockey again.

We bought, instead, a fancy five-year diary in red, tooled leather, not thinking that he might consider this as an indication that we believed he was going to be an invalid for a long time.

It was tough trying to find a suitable gift!

I remember going to see him at the Hamilton General a few times. He was lying on his back with his head and neck resting outside the iron lung but with the rest of his body inside the machine.

There was a rushing sound as air was pumped into and out of the machine, allowing him to breathe. I remember thinking about how carefully the nurses had combed his hair. Through the windows on the iron lung we could see his body and his arms and legs. He had lost considerable weight.

This is a Tank respirator ("iron lung") used at Union Hospital, Terre Haute, Indiana, from 1953 - c. 1973. Indiana State Museum, 650 West Washington Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. By the time I was able to visit my friend, the medical staff had been able to remove the plastic bubble so that his head and neck were outside the iron lung.

The visits were relatively brief because he tired quickly and because, frankly, I found it hard to think of things to talk about. I remember censoring myself, not wanting to say anything about school, hockey games and other activities that he could no longer take part in, things that would just depress him.

He was finally released from hospital, in a wheelchair, and began rehabilitation.

Although he has spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair, he managed to attend law school at the University of Western Ontario. He was called to the bar in 1965 and has practiced law in Arthur every since.

Thanks to excellent medical care, the support of his family and friends, and an awesome inner toughness he has managed to live an almost normal life.

The 1950s were a terrible time for parents with a constant worry about polio. The ways in which the disease spread were not known, and about all the medical authorities could advise was that parents should keep their children from swimming pools, and fairs---such as the Canadian National Exhibition---especially during the hottest months of the years.

Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article on Dr. Salk that captures very well, I think, the terror that parents felt at that time.

"According to American historian William O'Neill, 'Paralytic poliomyelitis (its formal name) was, if not the most serious, easily the most frightening public health problem of the postwar era.' He noted that the epidemics kept getting worse and its victims were usually children. By 1952 it was killing more of them than any other communicable disease. In the twenty states that reported the disease back in 1916, there were 27,363 cases. New York alone had 9,023 cases of which 2,448 (28%) resulted in death, and a larger number in paralysis. However, polio did not gain national attention until 1921, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, former vice presidential candidate and soon to be governor of New York, came down with a paralytic illness, at the time diagnosed as polio. At the age of 39, Roosevelt was left with severe paralysis and spent most of his presidency in a wheelchair.
"Subsequently, as more states began recording instances of the disease, the numbers of victims grew larger. Nearly 58,000 cases of polio were reported in 1952, with 3,145 people dying and 21,269 left with mild to disabling paralysis. In some parts of the country, concern assumed almost the dimensions of panic. According to Olson, 'parents kept children home from school, avoided parks and swimming pools, and played only in small groups with the closest of friends.' Cases usually increased during the summer when children were home from school. 'The public reaction was to a plague', noted O'Neill. 'Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned.' As a result, Olson points out, 'scientists were in a frantic race to find a cure.'

And then in 1955, just a couple of years after my friend contracted polio, Dr. Jonas Salk announced that field tests on a polio vaccine he had developed were successful. The vaccine was effective and safe.

Government grants, gifts from private donors and the contributions to the March of Dimes (of the kind Pogo had recommended) had worked.

Polio had been beaten.

By 1962, polio had been virtually eliminated in the US, Canada and Europe, and polio cases are becoming increasingly rare in the rest of the world.

The struggle for a vaccine had not been easy. Salk had worked for years in his lab, seven days a week, 17 or 18 hours a day to perfect the vaccine.

When someone asked whether he was going to patent his discovery, he shook his head and said, "Can you patent the sun?"

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As you know, this blog is dedicated to the view that the universe is made of stories, not atoms.

Here are a few stories about  Dr. Salk.

When he was a medical student and courting, the father of his future wife---a wealthy Manhattan dentist, very conscious of his elevated place in society--- refused to let the young couple get married until two conditions had been met. First, Salk had to get his MD so that the wedding invitation could show his title. Second, he had to give himself a middle name. Apparently, his parents had given him just the one name, Jonas. The future father-in-law thought that a single name was 'lower class'. Jonas chose 'Edward'.

He had little interest in money. " That (money) belongs in the category of mink coats and Cadillacs—unnecessary", he said.

He was troubled by the 'celebrity' that followed his discovery. (When he was flying,  pilots liked to announce that, "Dr. Salk is on board", and this was always followed by cheering and applause from the passengers.) He was forced into public events that kept him from his lab where he was working on a possible vaccine for cancer.

The Salks had three children: Peter, Darrell, and Jonathan Salk. In 1968, they divorced, and in 1970 Salk married Françoise Gilot, the French painter, who had lived with Pablo Picasso for nine years and had two children with him.

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Dr. Salk received many tributes during his life. Here is one that I find especially appropriate and moving. In 1977, Dr. Salk was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter, with the following statement accompanying the medal:

"Because of Doctor Jonas E. Salk, our country is free from the cruel epidemics of poliomyelitis that once struck almost yearly. Because of his tireless work, untold hundreds of thousands who might have been crippled are sound in body today. These are Doctor Salk's true honors, and there is no way to add to them. This Medal of Freedom can only express our gratitude, and our deepest thanks."

Dr. Salk died in 1995, of heart failure, at the age of 80.


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See you on April 22, 2012 for Posting #143 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.

Note:
There is a new Posting (# 8) in The Icewine Guru blog. In it the Guru gives his prediction on the Supreme Court's decision on the health care mandate issue. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on  http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/