Posted on April 6, 2015 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Susan’s vast collections of giraffes

 

 

Dozens of giraffes.  Dozens and dozens.  All lined up on a table; an honor guard of sorts for the late Susan Eaton.  It seemed so appropriate.  After all, giraffes have great vision and the woman to whom they came to say farewell was a visionary in her own right.  As one of the eulogists said, “Giraffes can see far.”

I didn’t know Susan all that well but I knew about her.  When I ran for mayor in 2004 I had the opportunity to meet her as she was the chief returning officer.  Three things struck me immediately: she was smart, she was firm and she was impartial.  She was the perfect person for the job.  It seems that everything she did, she did well.  Simply put; she was a force.

She championed many causes and virtually every one of them had to do with dignity, equality and social justice.  She was a doer and a dreamer – the former fuelled by the latter.  She was a facilitator extraordinaire and had the uncanny ability to synthesize complex issues and turn words into action.  She didn’t just produce the road map.  She frequently led the charge, often brandishing a placard.  And when the going got tough?  She whipped out her kazoo and her wonderful sense of humour.

Speaker after speaker spoke of her glowingly.  There was music, reflection and a room full of respect.  If everyone who wanted to speak had been granted a few minutes at the podium the service would have run late into the night, such was the admiration for this amazing person.

Susan walked the talk.  She did things.  She took action.  And even though she had very strong opinions about many things, she was always respectful of the other point of view.  She fought a lot of battles in the trenches for the benefit of others.

I was one of a handful of men scattered among several hundred women.  It was the most amazing gathering I have seen in one place at one time. Strong women.  Smart women.  Passionate women.  Artistic women.  Caring women.  Spiritual women.  Nurturing women.  Practical women.  Irreverent women.  Funny women.  Big picture women.  We don’t often see them all together because they are out there getting the job done.

Susan often opined about solidarity. This was evident when everyone in the room raised their voices in song at the conclusion of the ceremony.

I think the giraffes enjoyed the afternoon too.  Susan’s brother offered a gift of one of Susan’s giraffes to anyone who wanted one.  Even in death, Susan was in full “sharing mode”.

Susan’s herd: the women and men left to grieve her passing.  Let us also rejoice in her life.  And the next time you have a chance to do something that needs doing – stick your neck out.

( The very last sentence was contributed by yet another smart, strong, witty woman….Betty! )

Posted on April 4, 2015 under Storytelling with no comments yet

A mournful dirge on the pipes

( Please note: this is NOT an original story. I have not been able to trace its roots. It was given to me by a friend and was asked  to put my own spin on it. )

 

 

“Yeah when I get where I’m going Don’t cry for me down here.”

When I Get Where I’m Going – Brad Paisley

In this part of the world, when a loved one passes away, it is an accepted practice to have music at the funeral.  Sometimes it is the magnificent sounds of a church choir accompanied by an organ.  You will often see members of the extended family of the deceased perform some old favorites, with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and beautiful harmonies.  Chamber music or the comforting strains of a violin or fiddle may bring comfort to the bereaved.   And, if your ancestors came from across the pond, a haunting lament played by a solitary piper is quite common.

Performing at a committal ceremony is another matter.

Recently Danny, a bagpiper, was asked to play at a graveside service for a homeless man.  This poor soul had no family or friends and was to be buried in a rural cemetery deep in the back woods of Nova Scotia.  The bagpiper was a good natured person and quickly agreed to give this person a rousing send off.  Despite his considerable musical talents, the piper was known to have a poor sense of direction.  On the appointed day he found himself driving aimlessly in search of the service.

He arrived an hour late to what seemed to be a new part of the graveyard.  The hearse was long gone, as what must have been a small group of pallbearers and mourners.  The only people remaining were the grave diggers, and they appeared to be on a lunch break.  He walked up to them and apologized profusely for his tardiness.  He went to the side of the grave and looked down.  The vault lid was already in place.  He didn’t know what else to do so he started to play.

And play he did.  He played his heart out for this poor soul who had no family or friends.  He played like he had never played before, so touched was he with the sadness of the situation.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around.  As the piper played Amazing Grace, tears were observed spilling down the cheeks of the workers.  When the piper finally stopped, he too shed a tear.  He took comfort in knowing that the deceased had been given a send-off fit for royalty.

Danny packed up his pipes and made his way to his vehicle.  He felt a sense of inner peace, having completed this small but important task.

Just as he was opening his door, he heard what sounded an awful lot like laughter coming from the gravesite.  It seemed somewhat disrespectful after the emotional outpouring of a few minutes earlier. He cocked his ear and overheard one of the workers say, “I have never seen anything like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

The chagrined piper drove off down the dusty road.  He flicked on a local radio station that plays traditional music.  The tune they were playing was familiar.

“Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling …” He wondered if the lyrics had been written by a plumber.

Posted on April 1, 2015 under Storytelling with one comment

A bit grainy… but you get the picture

 

 

Do you remember the days when news was news and weather was weather?   Nowadays, weather is news.  With every tropical depression or every flake of snow that hints at falling to the ground, the newshounds sound the warning.  These weather prognosticators follow the forecasts in breathless anticipation of impending Armageddon.  Farmers rely on the weather.  Fishermen rely on the weather.   Why, then, are the rest of us subjected to 24 hour a day coverage when Mother Nature does what Mother Nature does?   Because Canadians are addicted to weather and pity help the day that the media stops reporting it.  What would we have to talk about, now that most of our engagement with other humans comes in the form of hand-held mobile technology?

It seems that every winter storm that drops more than 25cm of snow is dubbed “the storm of the century”!   Well I am here to report that my friends and I witnessed a once in a century storm some forty years ago.   I can actually pinpoint the date with great certainty.

It was March break in 1971 when four of us boarded a train in Antigonish, headed for Montreal to catch a Habs game and some culture.  Okay.  We were headed to Montreal to party and go to a Montreal Canadiens hockey game.  Our grandfather, a retired Montreal city councillor, had arranged tickets to the hockey game and a place of refuge at his home.  We chose to sit up for the entire trip as befitted our status and means at the time.  By the time we reached Truro, an hour and a half from our home town, the air was blue with cigarette smoke and the beer was flowing.

Sometime during the night in the wilds of Northern New Brunswick it started to snow.  At Levis, Quebec the next morning the tracks were impassable.  We hadn’t slept much as we had discovered the bar car when our supply of beer and rum had been depleted.  By now “the Storm of the Century,” as it would be dubbed later, was in full fury.  Heavy snow and hurricane force winds brought the region to a standstill.  However, after a lengthy delay, the rail liner resumed its trek and pulled into the bowels of Central Station later in the day.

Chaos.  Pure and simple.  Thousands of people were stranded.  Those who had arrived from points east and west had nowhere to go and those hoping to leave the city by train were stranded as well.  Let’s just say that our foursome was just a bit on the seedy side after small doses of sleep and large doses of alcohol.

One floor above the station, at street level, stood the venerable Queen Elizabeth hotel which could be accessed without going outside.  There was really nowhere else to go so we followed the throngs and entered the lobby of the hotel.  It was utter pandemonium as people jostled each other in impossibly long lineups, desperately trying to acquire lodging at any price.  I think our luggage was in green garbage bags so we didn’t have much bargaining power.  We spotted a pay phone and placed a call to our grandfather.

I am not the most religious person in the world, so I rarely use the word miracle except for, say, “Miracle Whip”.  Grandpa had anticipated our problem long before we arrived in the city and had booked a suite at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.  He told us to proceed directly to the “Executive check in”.  All of the other check in lineups had hundreds of people in them.  There were only a few well-dressed business types in ours.  When it was our turn the attendant looked at us and probably wondered if we were the maintenance crew or a group of street people.  We all had excessively long hair, wore tattered blue jeans and smelled like a bar at closing time.

No one has ever offered before or since to have someone carry my garbage bag to my room in a hotel.  You can just imagine the withering stares we were getting from the rest of the irritated masses.  We respectfully declined the bell hop service and took the elevator to our rooms.  Having consumed all of the sandwiches we had made for the trip we, of course, ordered room service.

When we awoke the next morning, the only things moving on St. Catherine Street, the major artery of downtown Montreal, were a handful of snowmobiles.  The combination of a heavy snowfall along with hurricane-force winds had created drifts that were two stories high.  There were two major news events on the television as we dined on eggs benedict.  Our Prime Minister at the time, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, had married the much younger Margaret Sinclair the day before in North Vancouver.  However, the much bigger story was that the hockey game at the Montreal Forum set for that day had been cancelled.  This was the first time a game had been called off in fifty years.

While we were disappointed that we would miss the game, at least we had the 20 hour journey back home on the train to look forward to.  We eventually made it to Grandpa’s and, to the eternal gratefulness of the train passengers; we were able to do our laundry before boarding the train for the return trip.