Posted on September 27, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

A whale of a tale

 

“Baby beluga in the deep blue sea,

Swim so wild and you swim so free,

Heaven above and the sea below,

And a little white whale on the go.”

Baby Beluga – Raffi

On the weekend, I had a whale of a time- beluga whale to be more precise. I don’t mean to burst Raffi’s bubble or that of his legion of young fans, but those same adorable and playful white whales are a very important part of an Inuit’s diet. Belugas migrate from the south in the spring from May to July and in the fall from the north around October/November. This means that they could make an appearance any time now and I will have a bird’s eye view when they arrive. This causes a great stir in the village because it means there will be lots to eat in the winter ahead.

Many of us are still carnivores. Old habits die hard and when you are raised on beef, pork and chicken, your diet tends to stay with you for a lifetime. With apologies to you vegetarians and vegans, I still relish a great steak, a roast beef dinner, or a hamburger cooked on the barbeque. Sometimes I think I’m a hypercarnivore or apex predator.

However, being a Maritimer and having grown up close to the ocean, I also love fish and all manner of seafood. Is there anything tastier than a halibut steak, a feed of fish and chips made with fresh Atlantic cod, scallops, mussels and the crème de la crème, lobsters?

I live close to the sea now. At high tide, I am only about 100 metres from the water’s edge. I can go and pick mussels at will at low tide. I had some the other day, and they were fabulous. One of my dreams is to go mussel picking under the ice in a few months’ time. At low tide, a hole will be drilled in the ice and those who are not claustrophobic can crawl down onto the floor of the bay and pick mussels to their hearts content, all the while keeping close tabs on the tide. I know it sounds risky, but the Inuit have been doing this a long time and I think if anybody knows about tides, it is the local people.

Last week I was treated to arctic cod which are also plentiful in the bay. Many people fish right off the end of the wharf at town point. I took the easy way out. I chopped up some onion, fresh garlic, and lemon and stuffed them in the cavity of the cod. I wrapped it in foil and tossed it into a 400-degree oven. I cooked some baby potatoes, carrots and asparagus. It was a fairly simple meal but quite tasty.

As many of you know, I am living in a house at the far end of the village. I no longer live on Sesame Street, a nickname for the street where most of the Qallunaat (white people) teachers live. A work colleague is on sabbatical, and I was the lucky one who ended up getting her home. She was looking for someone older and more mature to look after her place. The older part, I have down cold! The setup couldn’t be any better. I will get to witness some fierce winter storms that will sweep down the mountains and across the bay. I might have to invest in a pair of cross-country skis or snow shoes to make it out of the house to school when it’s really stormy.

In addition to providing me with great internet (not a phrase you hear often in the north), Sirius radio and many other amenities, my friend also told me to take anything that I wanted form the freezer in her fridge. The freezer is a unit at the bottom of the fridge. After multiple attempts at putting a frozen boxed pizza in the freezer, I discovered that there were actually two units for frozen food. For god sake, don’t tell my students. They’re still not sure if I’m a teacher and this would certainly blow my cover.

A few days ago, I took a frozen package out of the freezer. I swear that it looked exactly like two quesadillas rolled up and hard as a rock. Once thawed, I realized that this was not a Mexican treat but fish. It looked like beluga but just to be certain, I took a picture and showed it to one of the Inuk teachers. She started smacking her lips.”Mattaq”, she said. Typically, mattaq is beluga blubber that is eaten frozen and raw. I tried some at a staff Christmas party a few years ago. I think it might be an acquired taste (!) but apparently eating raw beluga is a great source of energy when winter turns bitterly cold.

Because the beluga I had in my possession was already thawed, I asked my colleague for cooking tips. She told me that I could boil it in salty water or cut it into strips and pan fry it with onions and fresh garlic. While watching the Ryder Cup yesterday at Chad and Emma’s we did just that. Five of us sampled the beluga. It didn’t have a fishy taste at all. We all agreed that it had the texture of calamari, but the taste was hard to pinpoint. It wasn’t super tasty, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant. I quite liked it but then again, I was the only one of 10 in our family who liked eating liver. I guess I don’t have a discerning palate. My friend (and teacher!) Mary tells me that fermented beluga, called igunaq, is “yummy.”

I was hoping to turn a new leaf this fall by moving towards a more plant-based diet but as long as there are treasures from the sea so close at hand (along with caribou meat – my favourite), my best and possibly only chance at becoming a vegetarian is after reincarnation!

Have a great week.

P.S. I have started using medical marijuana (CBD oil +THC) for chronic pain. No, I won’t be turning off all the lights, lighting candles and listening to the Dark Side of the Moon. It’s not meant to give you a high. This particular concoction is to help with sleep. So far, so good. Sweet dreams!

 

Posted on September 20, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

Play Ball!

(If you’re not a baseball fan, go check your Twitter account or do some push ups)

This is the second in a series of collaborations with fellow writer, Shelley Carroll. “She said. He said”, will appear from time to time, until Shelley realizes that this marriage could possibly sully Shelley’s sterling reputation. [I guess we should have talked about a literary pre-nup then, eh sport? Fear not – I can sully your rep even worse! – SC]

 

She said:

My good friend Len has once again offered me the opportunity to collaborate with him on a piece and I’m all agog! He even gave me the responsibility of choosing the topic and preparing the opening paragraph. But this time, we’ll be in separate rooms, different locales, and without wine or beer! It’s daunting. Instead of Lennon and McCartney, this time we’re more like Elton John and Bernie Taupin… minus the flare and, at least on my part, any musical talent.

So many possible topics immediately came to mind – our mutual fondness for the use of bad words, Len up North and doing a new thing vs. me here in Amherst going through old things, his perspective on ANYTHING as a male “septuagenarian” (his word of choice!) compared to my view as a female pushing 50 with a broom … the possibilities are endless!

After much banter back and forth, we have decided: the Expos!

Growing up in Montreal in the 70’s and 80’s, there was no bad seat at the Big O. In fact, there were always many seats available – no game was ever sold out. No matter where you sat, you could hear the cry of “bière/beer!” or “chip/peanut/crack’r Jack!” You’d enjoy the musical stylings of Fernand Laperrière on the organ and just like the song implies, “root root root for the home team”.

Those were the days. Mom, Dad, my brother Danny and I partook of many games, often in the nosebleeders, hoping to catch a fly ball. Preferably one launched out of the park by The Kid (#8 Gary Carter), The Rock (#30 Tim Raines), or The Hawk (#10 Andre Dawson).

Mom was a HUGE Expos fan. Her fave was Andre Dawson. Danny and I always picked number 10 at school sports in his honour. But for me, Gary Carter was the cat’s ass. He signed an 8-year contract with “nos amours” when I was 8 years old. And I had big plans. I would be a bat girl when I turned 15, in the final year of his contract, and he would fall madly in love with me. But our love would be forbidden on account of his age. Alas, my little prepubescent heart was broken: he up and left me for the Mets before I even developed hips or boobs!

More often than not, though, we’d enjoy the Expos games the old-fashioned way – by tuning in to CFCF Radio 60 and listening to Duke Snyder and Dave van Horne colour-commentate. After the game, I’d doze off listening to Ted Teavan’s post-game show on my clock radio.

You’d think that growing up in the heart of Montreal that our family would have been Habs fans. Nope! Dad hates the Habs with a passion – not so much the team, but moreso the media that surrounds it. Early in their 50+ year marriage, he lured Mom over to the dark side as well. They’re Bruins fans! Each spring, Dad mows a big Bruins emblem in the yard. It’s like he wants the house to catch fire.

 

He said:

It’s almost October. Fall is in the air. The leaves will be turning color soon in many parts of Canada. Not so much in the north. The Toronto Blue Jays are making a serious drive to get a spot in Major League Baseball’s (MLB) post season. Despite the Jays winning two championships in the 90s, make no mistake about it, there was a time that the Montreal Expos were Canada’s team. They played their first game on April 8, 1969 and their last game in Canada on September 29, 2004, when the team was moved to Washington, D.C.

It was a sad day.

“Something touched me deep inside, the day the music died.”

American Pie – Don Mclean

 

She said:

I was pregnant with my oldest son when I had the opportunity to catch a game with my brother in the spring of 1999. I wish I’d gone. But my very pregnant bladder and around-the-clock morning sickness didn’t give me much confidence in such an excursion.

 

He said:

I can’t remember the exact year, but it was another road trip to Montreal. Like Shelley, I have Montreal roots. My mom was born there and grew up in the hard scrabble neighborhood of Point St. Charles. It is hardly surprising then that any team with the name ‘Montreal’ in it would become our family’s team. We cheered for the Alouettes, the Expos and of course, Les Habitants.

I do remember that my brother Gerard and my brother-in-law, Benny were in the car that drove to Montreal to watch the Expos play at Olympic Stadium, more affectionately known as “The Big Owe”.

It’s the 7^th inning stretch and look who just slipped into an empty seat in Jarry Park beside Shelley and Len. It’s Gerard – Len’s brother.

His brother said:

When Expos fans reminisce about their team, some remember their bittersweet season in 1994

when they led the majors in August looking World Series bound, but all for naught with the

baseball strike ending the year, and as it turns out the beginning of the end for the franchise.

Others chose to remember the future Hall of Famers that passed through their ranks : Larry

Walker,Pedro Martinez, Andre “the Hawk”Dawson, Tim “Rock “Raines , Gary Carter to name a

few, as well as the oddballs : who could forget  Bill “Spaceman “ Lee or Ron “Pigpen “ Hunt who

reveled in breaking records for being hit by pitches ?

However, my fondest memories are the earliest futile years  beginning in 1969 with them

becoming Canada’s national team long before the Blue Jays were even a thought.We fell in

love with a bunch of cast offs with names like Mudcat Grant, Dick the Monster Radatz, Coco

Laboy, the Mayor of Jonesville Mack Jones , and the fan favourite, Le Grand Orange , Rusty

Staub . But where they played was a delightful intimate rejigged venue called Jarry Park, a

suitable setting for full display of Quebec’s joie de vivre ; a full out carnival atmosphere  no

matter what the score : who can forget The Dancer , a rather heavy fellow who would lead the

charge up and down the stands during seventh inning stretch, and the announcer Claude

Mouton announcing  “ Le receiveur …John Bocca..BELLa or inventing glorious French words

such as “un coupe de circuit “for home run or base volee for stolen base .

So this is the memory I chose to remember: a team of fun and lowered: Let’s go Expos !!!

She said:

Dad recalls that then-mayor Jean Drapeau said at the time that the odds of construction of the Olympic Stadium running up a huge debt for the city were the same as a man having a baby. I’m no medical expert, but I’m guessing he was wrong.

 

He said:

There were serious cost overruns, and it took thirty years to pay off the debt.

It was late in the night when we crossed the border into Quebec. There were no motel rooms available which was probably a good thing because it saved us the money that we could then spend on more beer and peanuts at the ball game. The sun was nearly coming up when exhaustion kicked in. We pulled into a provincial park and slept on top of picnic tables. Any port in a storm for a Maritimer.

The details are sketchy. Any road trip back in the 70s was a low budget, low brow affair. I believe we scraped up enough money to get a hotel in the downtown area. I’m quite certain that it wasn’t the Queen Elizabeth! We were a bit seedy as we got on the subway at Peel and headed for the ballpark. I couldn’t tell you the names of many subway stops in Montreal but the most famous back then was Pie-IX. We Anglos just called it ‘pie 9’. A few steps from the metro and we were in the bowels of the Big O. It felt like a giant crypt.

 

She said:

Ah yes, Montreal’s very own concrete jungle!

 

He said:

The starting lineup that day included Gary Carter (The Kid and Shelley’s heartthrob), Andre Dawson (The Hawk) and Warren Cromartie (Cro). I don’t remember anything about the game other than the outrageous price for beer and hot dogs. We could have bought a case of Schooner beer and a dozen wieners for the same price at home.

Shelley failed to mention two notable Expos. Rusty Staub (Le Grand Orange) played for the Expos from 1969-1971. Looking back, it seems longer than that, but Wiki never lies! He was a power hitter and a fan favourite. He was one of the first Expos bona fide stars.

But of all the Expos who came and went over the years, none was more colorful than Bill “Spaceman” Lee. While Lee was a talented pitcher, he was better known for his unusual personality, something sorely lacking in most professional sports these days. Outside the chalk lines of the ball field, Lee would often pontificate on a wide variety of topics like politics and the environment. According to Fanbuzz, “Lee also once claimed that his extensive marijuana use – including sprinkling marijuana oh his pancakes in the morning – was beneficial to his health and made him impervious to bus fumes while jogging to Fenway Park for work.”

 

She said:

We were in Summerside PEI one summer when The Spaceman made an appearance at a softball tournament. Dad whipped out his Player’s cigarettes, tore off a piece of the packaging, and had me approach Bill Lee for an autograph. I still have it in an old book somewhere in the “Carroll Family Archives” on Harvey Street!

 

He said:

Serious Expos fans (you know who you are) will painfully remember Blue Monday in 1981 when Dodger hitter Rick Monday smacked a home run off Steve Rogers, ending Montreal’s chances to get to the World Series that year.

The last word goes to Shelley.

 

She said:

Firstly Len, thanks for letting me take this little trip down Expos Memory Lane – all the more special because you let me join you! *sigh* It makes me long for a Hygrade hot dog with coleslaw. And maybe a flat overpriced beer…

Secondly:

“Put me in coach – I’m ready to play!”

Centrefield – John Forgarty

Posted on September 13, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with 2 comments

The Kilted Secretary

 

“Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen,

Pour myself a cup of ambition

And yawn and stretch

And try to come alive.”

9 To 5 – Dolly Parton

I never pictured myself as a secretary.

And you probably can’t either.

A 70-year-old balding man sitting behind a desk, answering the phone, typing reports and doing all those things that make secretaries indispensable. “Len. Are you smoking the wacky tabaccy again?”

Oddly enough, I have had some practical training as a secretary. Back in 1994, I started a financial planning practice from a small room in the basement of our house on Viewville Street. The room was just big enough for me and one client to sit comfortably. When couples arrived, things got tricky. There was barely enough space to change my mind. At the time, I was 42, I had zero clients, an empty filing cabinet, and 4 children under the age of 10, one floor above. I was highly motivated to succeed! Even if I could have afforded a secretary (which I couldn’t) he/she would have had to work from our garage out back. In other words, I had to do all the jobs in order to survive.

I mean no disrespect to principals. They are the educational leaders of our schools. A great principal makes a teacher’s life infinitely easier.

But make no mistake, when it comes to running a school, we all know full well the two most important people in the building: the secretary and the janitor.

My first gig as a teacher was in 1976 in Fairview, Alberta. I was wet behind the ears. It took me quite a while to learn how to become an effective teacher but less than 2 days to realize that Bonnie and Laura in the office and Alphonse, our janitor, ran the show. The secretary (ies) and janitors are the eyes and ears of the school. They know EVERYTHING that is going on. Principals confide in them. Teachers confide in them and most importantly, the students confide in them. The janitor’s closet was my personal confessional box! And if you’re really lucky and these people have a good sense of humour, then the chances are that you will have a happy and healthy school. Bonnie, Laura, and Alphonse possessed all these traits and more. Indispensable.

Those of you who read all my posts know that I am back up north in a different capacity than the previous 2 years. I am helping with some administrative tasks and will fill in for teachers when necessary. In the early going, it has been 100% administrative. I have lived in the office. And with all due respect to Dolly Parton, my day starts quite a bit earlier than 9:00!

Filling job positions anywhere in Canada during a pandemic is challenging. The Dairy Queen in our hometown in Nova Scotia was offering a signing bonus of $1000 along with better than average wages not long ago. Filling positions in the north is even more difficult.

I am grateful that I am task oriented because the tasks are endless in a school. These have not been normal times in our school. There have been a host of challenges since Day 1.

Our principal is a rock star. She has boundless energy, and she needs this. She is a whirling dervish. Most often, her cup is overflowing with work. To compound this extreme workload, she injured her ankle a few weeks ago and is on crutches. No longer can she sprint around the school. Lately, I have not only been her right arm but also her right leg! I can tell you that if I followed her around all day when she had two good legs, I would be in the best shape of my life.

While I miss the students, I don’t miss the daily pressure of lesson plans, teaching, recess duty, report cards etc. I can see all of you retired (and active) teachers nodding your heads. Holding one end of a skipping rope in the playground when it’s -30 is NOT where I want to be at 70.

The phones had been ringing off the wall this past week. Late on Friday afternoon, I took a call from the Board’s Head Office in Montreal. They were trying to complete the list of staff people in all of the schools. The person on the line was asking for the name of our secretary. I grinned. For a moment I thought I would reply that I was secretary pro tem, but in the end, I said that the position was vacant at the present time.

I am thinking of getting my kilt shipped to the north.

Have a great week.