To thine own self be true

“A fact is not the truth until you love it.”
–John Keats

When asked What day of the week it was, after a long pause:
“A good day.”
–Grandson, 2 years, 10 months

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Two other kid stories recalled:

The boy who had started school and made a poppy for Remembrance Day. When his mother asked who the poppy was for, the kid answered, It’s to remember all the dinosaurs that died.

Another school story. Kid being told about Terry Fox Day and asked to draw Terry. He draws a fox, instead, for Terry the Fox.

Good grief! What’s next in this crazy, frivolous world? World Keystone Pipeline Day? World Love-an-Alberta-Conservative Day? World Justin Trudeau Day? World Preschooler iPhone Day? World Screen-Love-In Day? World Sedentary Lifestyle Day? World Dumbed-Down Day? World Gambling Day? World National Enquirer Day? World Kim Kardashian Butt Day? World Hunger Games Day? World Entitlement Day? World Send-Us-All-Your-Money-Day? World Stock Market Day? World Mass Agenda Day? World Power and Control Day?

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“The degenerating of society begins with the sacrifice of primary concerns to the secondary concerns of an ideology.”–Northrop Frye, “Fourth Variation: The Furnace”

Margaret Laurence Home, Neepawa (aka Manawaka in her novels). Second time I’ve visited. This is the Big House (the MacLeod’s) in A Bird in the House.

Stopped by on a September Sunday afternoon, just after a rain, on the way to Winnipeg. The house and grounds are well-kept by volunteers.

Sidewalk stone indicating the original house-owner, Laurence’s grandfather.

Her typewriter waiting for her return.

The Stone Angel (Davidson family) monument located far within the Neepawa cemetery.

Personal signed copy of A Bird in the House–her greatest work. A collection of wonderfully interconnected short stories which I used to teach to Academic Challenge grade 10s. Still a great teaching novel for irony, characterization, symbolism, and themes.

My poem on the back of the first issue of Vol. 1, No. 1 of Margaret Laurence Review magazine, 1991. First written in 1987 in Winnipeg.

There is a palpable sadness and great spiritedness about Laurence and her life. Although she had numerous regrets, she made the best of her lot even when her writing powers failed her. This is, of course, reflected, too, in her works and by her women characters’ attitudes and choices regardless of how limited and limiting their contexts are.

His skates like wings flew up the ice,
Hair blown back, a modern god,
Held Habs’ torch against all odds.
Nothing but his best sufficed.
From end to end he moved so fast,
The plays he made were poetry
As fans jumped up to cheer for Guy.
But flowers wilt and no reigns last.
And when the goals dried up for good,
He ached inside to score again,
To rule all rinks once his domain:
A checking line his livelihood.
Sad, he left the game past prime
Knew gods can not stickhandle Time.

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A rare sonnet of olde with a Shakespearean rhyming couplet. A 1986 Alberta Poetry Yearbook award-winner. Around grade 2, I was delighted to find my name twice no less in the newspaper NHL scoring race: M. Richard, H. Richard–my first connection to the great Montreal teams of the ’50s. I eventually received the proverbial hockey sweater–Les Canadiens–for Xmas and cheered them on to several cups. First-masked Jacques Planted inspired me to try goaltending in Pee Wee. I later came back to the Habs around ’72, during the Robinson-Dryden years–the next delightful dynasty. Eventually that crew drafted Guy. In the above poem, we pick up his story as he aged and faded into retirement. The topic is an old cliché, as clunky as Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young”. The context this time is Canadian, though, so the sport had to be h—–. BTW, Lafleur was the direct, flashy predecessor of #99.

Th howls r sighlint now
Zombeez shuffl 2 th mayn offis
wear janitur tecknishuns
cunnect th regulurz
2 tall hummean genuraturz
Kwalifyed pursonel
delicutlee remoov th leftovr braynz
cheking them 4 damidg
& vakuum out th hedz

Fullee sirvisd & smyleen wuns agin
th teechurs trayd all-noing glansez
(Boy if th kidz cud c us now!)
& reterneen buy instink
2 there classrm sells
thay clime on wuden deskz
& lie soopine i’s opin
awayteen don &
the furst arriveen skool bus

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Originally published in This, That, The Other–Selected Poems of Spiritus, 1991. Probably the right time to trot this one out as teachers everywhere sink deep into the long winter haze over a month b4 Xmas. The poem works on a number of levels. It was inspired by a student who was once looking for me at school long after the working day ended. He was genuinely surprised that I had not been there and may have assumed I lived there and had no other life. The subject matter blurs a bit with memories of olde science fiction movies about clichéd robots and mad scientists. The language choices were inspired by the latter (as in HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey running down–the reading aloud of this poem is also an aural experience for sure) and by eccentric ’60s Canadian poet bill bisset who played with language in a ‘dumbed-down’ pre-texting world way.

“I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones till Friday
Far from the undertow
Far from the overload”
–from the song by Joni Mitchell

Souvenir from Lodge store–engraved wood pen set.

Arriving at the Lodge at the top of a hill after driving up a one-lane road opposite to and overlooking the pools area.

The view from a poolside balcony looking back to the red rock canyon bend coming into the pools and hotel area. The flower baskets were on each balcony in summer and fall.

Window tables by the picture windows looking up at hills surrounding the pools area and hotel. One could leisurely watch the changing weather and birds from here. Meals were served 3x daily.

View of the cold pool and road below. (Hot pool peeking out to left of the main building and entrance.) Private rickety elevator (no fun being caught in if there was a power outage, I imagine) from hotel to ground level sticks up on right side of picture. On ground level, it was then only a short dash across the road to the pools entrance.

Stairs descending to the above-mentioned, outside elevator from hotel.

The cold pool–most people prefer the hot pool. Only kids and young adults swim and dive here. In total, it took about 10-12 minutes to actually get into the hot pool from the hotel.

View of Lodge across road from cold pool. My daughter and I saw bears to the right of the hotel above (about 20 yards) when we walked in that direction. They were climbing a nearby tree for its fruit. The pic on the right is the tunnel entrance to the elevator that came out onto road level.

Some rube walking toward the elevator.

Lest we forget. The 78-room lodge ran from June 1965 to March 2011, and was torched by human hands in October 2013–an ignominious fate. My family always stayed there from the 1980s to 2008 for many reasons–mostly for the views, its closeness to the hot pool below across the road, the souvenir shop, and the restaurant. it was just such a neat place to stay–very quaint, with viewable animal life. I have many fond memories of sitting on the poolside balcony overlooking the road snaking east into the red rocks, listening to the big vehicles gearing down as they descended into the pools area on the way to Sinclair Canyon and the townsite. I wrote a couple of poems there, but one special memory comes back this morning of a warm early morning on the balcony with hanging flower pots, and an eager ruby-throated hummingbird syphoning his breakfast about a foot away from my head beneath him.

No, they don’t make them like they used to and it was sad to see the lodge fall victim to politics and, then, fire. This fall I looked across from the hot pool up at where the Lodge used to be and remembered all the special family stays there.

(photo of my VHS case)

A different, engaging movie for anyone who loves strong British acting, older actors (Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates), the generation gap topic, or the eccentric old man motif. Originally a play by John Mortimer and shot at Mortimer’s childhood home, the movie is episodic ranging from the son’s childhood to his adulthood as he deals with an older father, his decline, and, finally, death.

Olivier makes a funny curmudegeon who tests the nerves and patience of everyone with his observations and games-playing. Bates is the flustered, unsure adult son who can never break through the façade of his aging father’s stubbornness and public performances to affect any kind of male closeness. It is especially interesting to hear what he is left with after his father dies and it certainly is none of the conventional things an orphaned son typically inherits, which he outlines concisely.

Strong, too, are the key supporting roles of the women characters played more-than-capably by Jane Asher and Elizabeth Sellars. The movie, though simple-plotted, rings true; there is a realistic fragmentedness about its scenes and overall capturing of family and marital relationships that will linger with one long after viewing. Made about 6 years before Olivier passed on, this is a scene-stealing tour-de-force for him every time he anchors or appears in an episode. Highly recommended for all of the above.

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“The road to identity runs through a growing awareness of role-playing, of understanding the one to which one is playing ritual games in society.”–Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Literature and Society

Sure it was released in theatres on Halloween in 1945 at the end of the war, but as one of the best adaptations of an Agatha Christie book, it still works very well when viewed today. The classic black-and-white movie seamlessly directed by Rene Clair keeps the viewer guessing till the end even though it retains much of the original’s details and flavour. In this, it is assisted by strong casting, particularly of the alcoholic-doctor (Walter Huston) and the Irish judge (Barry Fitzgerald).

I think the movie still works today because it is a first-rate whodunit, has lots of red herrings, no shortage of suspects, many jests, and destabilizes any certainties the viewer may have about the plot per se which features a long surprise ending. Too, the movie plays with fear and trust; for the most part the former is convincingly portrayed and exemplified. For the latter, ‘Who can one trust?’ is the central message, and that is borne out by the many surprises rendered in 97 short, suspenseful, constantly engaging minutes.

A misnomer title if ever there was one. A great Christmas romance-comedy classic starring Cary Grant as a kind, perfect angel, David Niven as a troubled, jealous bishop trying to build his dream cathedral, and Loretta Young as the bishop’s innocent wife who the angel becomes involved with. Monty Woolley has a nice supporting role as a professor-friend of the bishop and his wife, who has let his dream history book project languish. Gleason also has a fine supporting role as a cab driver who relearns how to skate and recovers his inner child. Indeed, the skating scene is good fun and there are some simple special effects to add humor to a nicely-done script by Robert E. Sherwood. Henry Koster’s direction is light, playful, and delightful. A truly charming comedy with none of the vulgarity or stupidity that ruins most comedies made today. Best seen in the original, uncolorized, atmospheric black and white version. Easily as great a Christmas film as the more melodramatic It’s a Wonderful Life.