What I get up to when the kiddies go to school--Paddle

This morning's paddle from Cooks Cove to Dorts Cove.

Guysborough run

Today I took a walk on the route I usually run. I start on a little path through a marsh near my house.

The pussy willows are out in the marsh.

Then onto the dirt road --Prince Street.

And down the Trans Canada Trail.

See the water for the trees.

Like any good course there are water hazards.

And it would not be Guysborough without a Christmas tree farm.

Go past the Mill Pond. Every other day there have been ducks on the water--today out and back, no ducks.

Inter-species tree hugging.This birch is wrapping around this spruce. Feel the love.

And a seed that survived a squirrel's very thorough demolition of a winter stock pile of spruce cones.

Tree fall--great place for little critters to lodge.

And almost at my turning point.

I see the sign.

I see civilization--time to head back into the woods.

This is my run--I hope you enjoyed this preview and come out on the trail soon.

George Elliott Clarke in Guysborough

King Bee Blues

Recited by George Elliott Clarke at the Chedabucto Place Performance Centre.  
Some people can write, some people can read, and some people can perform.  
This is an amazing performance by an amazing writer. 

Clarke was in Guysborough on a provincial tour to talk to High School students about the refugees from the War of 1812.  This is a small portion of his talk. 

A pain called poverty

I've been taking notes both in my head and on my computer for weeks but it has taken me a long time to face this topic: poverty.

I realized that this was an issue that cut close to the bone when CBC radio ran a feature on the The Current about poverty in Canada. When I heard the promo ads for the piece I stared to feel tight and anxious inside. On the day of the program, I listened and cried. I knew I had been poor but I didn't realize that it still hurt.

My story of poverty started when my parents got divorced when I was nine-years-old. As many women who experience divorce find out, the end result is poverty. My father did give us support but to split his income between two houses meant one household would end up poor and that was the one which was supporting two children.

I remember well the first house we moved into after my mother left my father; it was a small two story house with two bedrooms upstairs and a living room and kitchen downstairs- very similar to the house which I have rented for the past 2 ½ years. The only real problem with renting this house- over renting an apartment- was the lack of white goods. We had no fridge, no stove, no washer, no dryer.

It was February, snow drifted by the front and back door. That however was a boon to us at the time. The winter in combination with the space between our summer and winter storm doors served as our fridge and freezer. The missing stove was a more serious problem.

One of the things that my mother had received as a parting gift from my father's family was an old electric kettle from great-aunt Dulcie. With that kettle we attempted to cook an entire chicken. Why my mother would have bought a whole chicken when we didn't have a stove I don't know but through repeated dousing of boiled water- after several hours we ate chicken; pale white, watery, and with the texture of rubber. I can't remember any other 'boiled' dinners that winter. Not long after we moved we bought a second hand fridge and stove.

Another of my most ingrained memories of that most impoverished time from my childhood was donuts; donuts with pink and blue icing from Farmer Brown's restaurant in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

In an effort to safe money, we first rented a house in the community of Heatherton, about 10 minutes from Antigonish, which I guess afforded us a weekly treat—an evening out at Farmer Brown's.

I am guessing these forays into town took place on either Friday or Saturday nights as we were out late and would not have been on a school night. The evening consisted of my mother, sister and I sitting around a thickly varnished wooden table nursing hot chocolates like a reluctant bar patron after last call for several hours while we waited for the donut clock to wind down to midnight when every donut would be on sale for 1 cent.

We usually arrived about 10 pm and sat and watched. Were there many good donuts on the shelve? Would someone come in and steel our well-waited on donuts at 11:55 for 5 cents a piece? Some nights ended in disappointment. No donuts, or only plain remained at midnight. Other nights we would come home with 0.50 cents worth of donuts. The freezer was jam packed with donuts after such a haul and all the kids at school thought I was so lucky to have donuts in my lunch everyday.

A few years later we moved on to the next stage of life. My mother was a nurse, she had a job and never worried about working enough hours, my sister and I had access to the child support my father provided and took our friends out for lunch at the White Spot in North Vancouver where we were living in my 12th year.

We had made it through. We weren't rich but we were no longer poor and I forgot about it.

Part of my mother's divorce downfall had been that she was not a marketable product. She had a BA from St.FX but had no job experience or skills other than in the food service industry. In those first few years after the divorce my mother got her RN's and in so doing ended our time in purgatory for purgatory is truly the station many divorced women find themselves in financially; supported just enough to be called equitable by the law by their ex-husbands, and making not enough through work to keep good food in the house.

Having gone through this experience as a child I thought I would be smart enough not to fall into the same predicament. I wasn't.

Just over four years ago I came home to North America from living in Asia for 10 years. I was broke, had a 1 ½ year old and soon found myself expecting another child. I was living in my aunt's front room and wondered how things had gone so incredibly wrong.

I had a masters degree. I had worked successfully in a variety of fields inventing and perfecting skills as needed. I was a professional chameleon who had met many career challenges in a variety of different fields yet here I was; penniless.

With my family's help I pursued more education- a course certifying me in phlebotomy-which would easily find me a job in the states where I was currently living should I be able to untangle the red tape holding me back from dual citizenship—my mother is an American but left in her late teens to marry my father in Canada. Unfortunately that was a puzzle I could not solve so with a baby six weeks old and a toddler 2 ½ I returned to Canada and to my father's house.

I stayed at my father's for one month. While I was still in Massachusetts I found an apartment to rent in my home town. I was not sure if I could afford to pay the rent but at least I had an option. At that point my ex was sending me $500 a month and the rent excluding utilities was $350. I couldn't think about how we would live on that much money- I just knew I had to do it.

At this point I ran up against some ignorance regarding my situation from an old friend of mine. He thought that $500 in child support was more than enough. Had he ever tried to live on $500? Let alone with two reliant children. No of course he hadn't. He was a single white male with a good job who had grown up in an upper middle class family. His father was a banker for god sake. How could he possibly think we could survive on that kind of money.

Of course my friend expected that I would have an income in addition to the $500. What he failed to realize was that even if I had been willing to leave my less than 2 month old baby in childcare, I would never make enough money to pay for the childcare. Upon my calculations I would take home before taxes $200 after paying for full-time childcare. Out of that I would have to pay some money for gas which was at an all-time high, and buy formula for the baby, approximately $100 per month because I would not be at home to breast feed her. More than likely I would be further in the red if I went to work, not out of it.

In that first month I was back in Canada and living at my father's I saved all my money- what little there was of it, to make sure I had enough money for the deposit and first months rent on the apartment I had secured for me and my small fragile family.

At this time, my baby was always hungry. I could nurse her for two hours straight and she would still want more. I bought formula and after a two-to-three hour round of nursing feed her a four ounce bottle of formula. She gulped it back as if she were a famine struck child in the horn of Africa. At this rate she would go through a can of formula a week. As she grew this would surely increase. That would mean $100 a month just to feed this child which I should have been able to do naturally and for free.

I sought out help in the form of a breast pump which I was provided free of charge by Guysborough Kids First; a family resource organization in our area. My life revolved around feeding, then around pumping and then feeding some more. Hours a day I would have either the baby or the pump on my breast trying to increase my milk production and thus reduce my need for formula which I could not afford. After several weeks the almost round-the-clock pumping paid off and my baby finally didn't want the bottle after breast feeding. She was finally full.

In the months that followed my ex increased his child support payment to $800. To my mind this still was very little for two children and one new mother to live on. I swallowed my pride and made an appointment at the welfare office. I brought all my required documents; proof of my rental cost, power bill, and the bank statement showing the amount of child support my ex was sending. According to the government I had too much income to be eligible for income assistance. I walked out convinced that you must have to be eating dirt to qualify for government assistance to save your family.

As luck would have it, I applied for my Child Tax Benefit when I first returned to Canada; doubting very much that I would receive anything as I had not worked in the country for 10 years and had not filed an income tax in all that time. Somehow, I was granted the child tax benefit and my income doubled overnight. Things were not perfect but $1,600 is enough to live on although I really wonder how many of you reading this could do it.

Another few years went by and things were good. We lived in a decent apartment building. I still didn't have much of a job; I babysat for my cousin for a ridiculous salary all the while wondering what my experience and education could offer me in terms of employment opportunities in Guysborough.

Guysborough is an area which is often referred to as under-employed. The unemployment rate is often pegged at the same number as the out-migration rate; 15 percent. So why then, you might ask, would I move to a place where my employment options were so limited? I had education and experience- certainly I could look anywhere in Canada and find a good position. I limited myself to Guysborough for one reason and one reason only; my health.

People who know me know that I periodically have bowel obstructions. These often require hospitalization several times a year. For my children, I had to live close to my family so that my kids would have a place to go when my inevitable hospitalizations occurred. So all my education and experience was at the disposal of my cousin for $35 a day, a wage I had been making hourly as a teacher in Bangkok several years before.

Although we were comfortable in our apartment, our neighbors were uncomfortable. They called the landlord to complain about the children crying, about my dog running, about anything. I got tired of waiting for the next call from the landlord about things I could not control and I decided when a house, which he also owned, came up for rent, that I would move. I could not stand the stress of my neighbors complaining about my everyday life anymore.

The house to which I moved, is a small two story building that is approximately 180 years old. To call it drafty would be an understatement but it was livable and alleviated some stress. However, my stress was soon to be amplified. My cousin, whose children I had watched the previous year, decided two days before I was to resume babysitting for her in the new school year, that her family thought my house was too unsafe for her children to be staying there. What I wonder at is why she thought it was good enough for my children?

After the first few months it became clear that this house was going to cost me more than just my small job- it was going to cost me thousands to heat. Starting in October, I spent $400 a month on oil to heat my small house. I filled in cracks with blankets, rags, and insulating foam. Covered the windows in shrink wrap and learned to live at 60 Fahrenheit, which was not comfortable.

To save money I would walk to the grocery store in the morning to get all the best discounted meat and produce; items that were on the edge of their expiry date. I did laundry only before 7 am so as to use power during off-peak hours thus saving cents per kilowatt hour. I babysat for one child infrequently but as of November of that year I had no idea how we would make it through the winter in this house.

Just as I was considering the option of the Food Bank for Christmas, a job, a full-time, using my skills, honest to goodness job, fell into my lap.

At that point I had a job-did it mean I would work? The problem was what to do with the children? My oldest was in a pre-school program that ran everyday from 9:00 to 2:15 but she was unable to take the bus to the school. I had a babysitter for the youngest child but she could not ferry the older one to and from school—she had too many children in her care to fit them into a vehicle safely to transport my child to school. I could not afford full-time child care for two children. What would I do?

Luckily people in my community stepped in to help me. Parents and caregivers of the other students in my daughters class took her to and from school every day without fail. It was tough to ask for help but without it my family would find itself in very bad shape.

These days things are definitely looking up- I am just about to move into my own home; a purchase I made from my savings this past year. Savings derived from part-time work, supplemented by EI (employment insurance) and child support payments from my ex along with that fabulous child tax benefit. All together, still technically living just above the poverty line for a single parent, two child family in rural Nova Scotia.

Now to return to where this started- the radio show. When I listened to The Current I felt a pain that I hadn't expected. This pain was highlighted when my oldest daughter who is six mentioned in conversation, “That was when we were more poor.” Before that time I had not known that my child knew we were poor. How did she know that? How did that make her feel when she went to school? Did she know she was poor before she went to school or was it that exposure to other kids and their expectations of material goods that made her feel poor? These are things I may I never know but I hope that when she is a grown up she doesn't feel an unexpected pain when she hears about the poverty experienced by others in this country.

The moral of this story is that poverty hurts, even when it is the kind of poverty that has a car, lives in a house, not on the street, and has never received social assistance or been a client at the food bank. This poverty, the poverty experienced by many working class parents and many if not all single mothers, is endured quietly by people in your community.

What most people don't know is that most people living on the razor's edge of poverty won't ask for help. Help has to be thrust upon them. So many single mothers I know would rather cry every night from frustration and hunger rather than take someone up on their offers of help. If you truly wish to help someone in this situation you must give that help completely, not just an offer, do something without offering first; make a meal, come to babysit the children for a few hours, give a card with a few dollars. All of these actions mean far more than the well intentioned offers of help.

I was lucky and had help from my family and my community when I needed it. That help made a big difference for me and my family. If you are a charitable person and wonder how you can make a difference in the world look no further than the families in your own community. Look at what people need to make their lives better and act to help them make it happen.

The one thing that I want to leave people with about being poor is that it scars you, makes you feel ashamed of your house, and your family. You don't want to invite people to your home for fear that they will find your duct taped flooring, which prevents some of the drafts from breaking through the floor, hideous. When you do invite people in you point out your makeshift attempts to make your house more livable and laugh about the results of your efforts. The laughter hides both your pride in your innovations and the shame you feel at living in such an unfit house.

Being poor was not something I planned and not something that I or anyone else should be blamed for although often the poor are blamed for their own situations. Your made to feel like being poor is your fault, you should have made better life choices, etc. We will never know other people, we can only hope to live humanely and help others without judgement.

Rememberance Day 2011

Here are more of my Remembrance Day articles for 2011.

A soldier at war's end

By Lois Ann Dort

COUNTRY HARBOUR – In January of 1944, at the age of 18 Havelock Mason, of Isaac's Harbour followed in his father's footsteps and joined the war effort. Mason starts his story with his dad, “My father, he was in WWI and WWII in the Navy. I joined in Halifax at the old number six depot and they sent me to the engineers training centre in Chilliwack, B.C.. I was there for five months for training. then I was shipped to England. I landed in Cove, England trained there a short while and then from there went over to Alstum, Belgium.”

Mason worked as a sapper, “I was a driver. They (sappers) built bridges and cleared mine fields.”

When the war ended Mason was stationed in northern Holland and became a member of the Canadian occupation force in Germany. “I was stationed in Leer, Germany. We maintained a bailey bridged – kept it open for ships to go down to the North Sea on the Ems River. The bridge had been completed in 1939 but as soon as the war started that was gone,” Mason said.

During the liberation Mason recalls his time in Holland cheerfully. “In Holland we got along A 1. In Holland they thought there was nothing like the Canadians. We used to feed a lot of them too. They hadn't too much then- the Germans had most of it. We got a ration every two weeks with cigarettes, candy, gum and we used to give the kids our gum and candy. They knew when we were getting it and they would all be there and we would give it all to them. The Canadians liberated Holland- they're not going to forget that.”

In occupied Germany the population was not as friendly but Mason said they never experience sabotage. “They weren’t as friendly as the Dutch – you couldn't blame the in a way. They were all smashed up at the time. Their homes, streets and bridges were all bombed.”

Mason returned to Canada and to depot number six in Halifax in the Spring of '45. He and his father both returned home to Isaac's Harbour. Mason spent his working life as a quartermaster on the Great Lakes, married, had children and built a home in Country Harbour. He is a member of the Antigonish Legion and attends Remembrance Day services at Cross Roads County Harbour.

Guysborough student learns WWII history through family letters

By Lois Ann Dort

GUYSBOROUGH – Alexandra MacDonald a Grade six student at Chedabucto Education Centre built her school project for the heritage fair last March around an amazing archive of letters sent from her grandfather in Europe to his aunt back in Nova Scotia from May of 1943 to Novemeber of 1945. “I like history and I wanted to learn about my grampy because I never got to see him (he died before she was born). We have all the letters that he wrote to his aunt Emma during the war,” MacDonald said.

Through reading the letters MacDonald got to know her grandfather and learn about an important part of Canadian history at the same time. “I learned where he was and he talked about how nice some of the countries were. His favorite countries were Holland and Belgium. He loved Belgium. He went through England, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France and Germany....He was 19 when he left, he lied about his age and said he was 21 to get in. Once he got there he missed his family, he missed home. He mentioned home in every one of his letters.”

She interviewed her grandfather's cousin and best friend Frank who also served in the war. “He was 21 when he enlisted and went overseas in February of 1942 at age 22. He said he had met my grampy in Holland and they were pretty happy. They were probably both happy that they were still alive....he got back from the war in November of 1945 so that's a long time being there from 1942.”

With Remembrance Day fast approaching MacDonald encourages others to take part in the services available in the area, “Everyone should go to Remembrance Day Services. It's not very hard to do and they're so special.”

To get young people more involved in Remembrance Day she suggested, “Teachers should teach it in school more and encourage kids to go to the services and do activities about it. That is what really got me interested, that and my grandfather was in it.” Reciting and writing poems, singing songs, performing or watching a concert, creating pictures, and writing letters to veterans are just a few of the activities that MacDonald lists which peaked her interest in WWII history.

To complete her project, which included filing and summarizes the many letters her grandfather sent home, she wrote a letter to her grandfather, a man she'd never met but now knew so much about.

Dear Grampy Lowell,
I learned about you. Things like: you were a trooper, you wrote a lot of letters and you were a very nice man. You loved the countries of Holland and Belgium because they were clean. And the people were nice. You appreciated the little things in life like letters and chocolate bars. You loved your family and often thought about home. I also learned a lot about Frank, your best friend and cousin. Frank also told me about all the time you two got in trouble together and much more. You, grampy Lowell, fought for freedom, and you are my hero.

Lots of Love as Always,
Alexandra

A daughter's remembrance

By Lois Ann Dort

GUYSBOROUGH – Percy Lumsden was a proud veteran who marched every year in the Remembrance Day parade in Guysborough. Although he is no longer with us, like so many of our treasured veterans, his memory remains. Through his daughter Patsy's archival skill and interest in family history, Percy's life as a soldier and beyond has been detailed meticulously on the website rootsweb. The following are excerpts from a letter Percy wrote to his mother from England in 1944.

Dear Mum,
I received a box of chocolates from you...thanks very much. They are swell mum but are you sure that you didn't sacrifice them to send them to me. I don't want you to do that mum because you need them more than I do....By the way I got two letters from you the other night too...and one from Mrs. Hogan. I guess Joe Hogan is gone all right and I feel sorry for his mother. She thought an awful lot of him because he was the youngest of the family....He was a swell guy and was just ordinary like all the rest of us....Well mum, I guess there isn't any news, so I will close now. Thanks again for the chocolates and I hope you are getting better now.
Lots of Love From Percy


For more on Percy's life in the service visit http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~guys/Percy/percy3.html

Young veterans from modern conflicts

By Lois Ann Dort

GAGETOWN, NB. – During Remembrance Day we are asked to remember the veterans who fought for our freedoms in the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific during WWI and WWII but it is important to also remember the men and women in uniform today who are serving in active conflict zones in Afghanistan. Ryan Toole, graduate of Guysborough Academy class of 2002 and son of Hadleyville, served in Afghanistan from September of 2008 to April of 2009. He is still in the infantry stationed in Gagetown, New Brunswich where he lives with his wife Lesley and their three children aged from 11 months to five years old. This past weekend Toole took time out from work and family to talk to The Journal about his tour in Afghanistan.

Toole joined the army in April 2003, not long after finishing High School. He said that he had always thought of the military as his best career option as he was a hands on kind of guy and didn't think college would be a good fit for him. He also had some family history that helped direct his path toward military life; his great-grandfather had served in both WWI and WWII lying about his age to get into the first war and courageous enough to enlist again in the second. “I always thought that what he did was honorable,” said Toole of his ancestor.

While still in school and already setting his sights on a military career, Toole witnessed the attacks on 911 on TV in the school cafeteria. “I remember being in the cafeteria in school and watching the terror attacks on September 11. I knew even before that that I would join the military. It felt right to do my part,” he said.

Starting a year before deployment to Afghanistan was mission specific training which took Toole to various locations across Canada and the United States. “We did work up training for more than a year... Wainwright, Alta; Texas and New Mexico....as much training as you can jam down your throat- I guess you can never have to much.”

Toole's unit was part of the provincial reconstruction unit. “When we first went there we were in Kandahar Air Field. Then we went to camp Nathan Smith in the middle of the city. We were also in Zhair and Panjwaii districts. We fought back and forth between Zhair and Panjwaii districts,” he said. “We would take people out who were going to do work like dig wells, and build schools....We would do patrols to be out there and walk around to show the people that we are there to help them and not do them harm.”

“When we were in Nathan Smith we would do quick reaction force. We would take people out to diffuse bombs, if anything happened you would go out for back up. We got a lot of IED (improvised explosive device) calls. People would call with a location and then engineers would do their thing. Or you would go back if there was more than one,” Toole said of the day to day work he performed while on base.

As for the mission, Toole is ardent in his belief that Afghans want to fight their own battles and he feels Canada's efforts in helping them to do so are appreciated. “They would really like to stand up on their own feet. If we don't help them do that we will be back there again. They (Afghan army recruits) would go out with us. They are pretty eager. A lot are good and switched on. A lot of them are pretty young....We should stay and teach them, give them skills to fight t the bad guys themselves. So they can look after themselves. I think that they are appreciative of the things that we are there doing.”

Being away from home is difficult but Toole says he would not be reluctant to return to Afghanistan. “It is one of those experiences that I am glad I had....My family is very supportive about me going too.” He admits that now having three children to leave behind, things would be harder than during his first tour where there was only one but he said, “It still wouldn't phase me. I would go back for sure.”

A war brides story

By Lois Ann Dort

BOYLSTON – While the WWII saw many men leave our shores to fight overseas, the end of the war brought many women, newly minted wives of Canadian solidiers, to Canada for the first time. These war brides came from all walks of life and from many different countries within Europe although most of them were from the U.K; the first foreign soil most Canadian soldiers landed on. Betty Dort, who now resides in Boylston, was one of the over 40, 000 war brides to come to Canada. On Friday she sat down with The Journal to describe the experience.

“I was born in South Wales. A place called Aberteleri. My mother was Welsh and my father English,” Dort said in a still recognizably British accent. But by the time the war started the family had moved to Birmingham, England; her father had migrated back home for work during the depression. As she recalls, she was 12 or 13 years old at the start of the war.

Her family suffered very little tragedy during the war according to Dort, “Everything was badly bombed in Birmingham because we had all the factories there. We were lucky,” she said when asked if her family had been hurt. “Of course we had air raid shelters and we used to have to go down, it was in the garden, everybody had one. But they weren't really bomb proof- not as such. If there was a direct hit you'd go anyway,” she says with a laugh.

The war dragged on and Betty grew up. She was a member of the British Red Cross and it was through her involvement with the war effort that she met her husband; a Canadian from Canso named William (Bill) Dort.

“He was stationed an hour away from where we lived,” Betty said. “The Canadian military hospital was there, and he was nursing. And I was in the British Red Cross so we used to be invited down there when there was socials going on. That is how I met him. '45 I think it was. They were still bringing troops in from the battles.

“He was from Canso. He was in the Royal Army Medical Corps.; Canadian medical corps. We married in '46. I came here in October of '46. I got married in June and then Bill came back before me and then I came over in October. He was still in the army then, so we stayed in Halifax for a month and then we came down to Canso.

“After a while there was nothing there, no work or anything so we went back up to Halifax. He wanted to try to get a job a Camp Hill but there was a waiting list to get in there so then, we were living on Barrington street in a bedsit and he got a job as a a security guard there on the docks. It didn't bother him cause Bill knew the army and they got used to anything.”

When Dort left home for Canada she left behind both parents, four brother and two sisters all in Birmingham. “They all came to the station when I went to London. Then we had to go to Canada House, then we had to go down to the boat train to Liverpool to get the ship. My father came with me to London. He wasn't supposed to but he would insist that he had to come with me. So I left him in London and that was the first time I had seen tears in his eyes.”

The voyage to Canada took 10 days and was a rough crossing. Dort landed at pier 21 in Halifax aboard the Letitia in late October, 1946. She described the journey,“All the different girls stuck on the ship. It wasn't births; there was just bunk beds stuck on and there were girls from everywhere on.

“There was one woman from Holland; she had a little boy. She had been married to a Dutch soldier and he had been killed. And then she had married a Canadian solider and when she got on the ship in Liverpool, she was sick all the way over. She couldn't get off the bunk. So I used to take the little boy and look after him. When we got into Halifax, pier 21, they had to take her off in ambulance and she was going all the way to Alberta. I thought, 'You poor soul, how are you going to make it to Alberta.' I often wonder how that little boy got on.”

When asked how she felt coming over to a new country far from friends and family with the exception of her husband she said, “Having that little boy took my mind off anything else. I was more concerned to mind him.

“It was a rough sea as well getting into November in the Atlantic. The ship just rolled side to side but it never bothered me. I always said if I had been a man I would have been a sailor.”

As for her expectations about her new country she said, “When your in love your not expecting anything you just want to be with them again. It wasn't a thought. I was surprised when I did end up in Canso. No indoor plumbing, no bath and things like that. We were used to all that you see...Come from a city, we had everything....But it didn't bother me.” Once in Canso they lived with Howard and Thelma Avery until their return to Halifax. “We weren't in Canso very long because there was no work and Bill wouldn't stand around doing nothing,” she said.

Some marriages that came out of the war years failed, making a new life in a new country proved too difficult for some women but Dort counts herself as one of the lucky ones to have had a husband such as Bill.

Writers Workshop

With blowing snow and a late start we had the honour of hosting a writing workshop with Sheldon Currie.

Our first exercise was for each member to write one word, then we combined all those words and wrote a few paragraphs.


Sunny
chandelier
sale
sadness

She remembered the first day they met. The parlor in his mother's house had a brilliant chandelier that looked like the icicles hanging from the dead tree over Manson's Brook. The brook, there was a place that brought back her fears; family secrets and internal dread of malignant genes. Her mother had chosen the Virginia Wolf exit plan in Manson's brook, and she was always contemplating her own state of mind, the depth of her sadness, on a daily basis.

But today was sunny, there were prospects on the horizon including Joe. On the first day, the iridescent afternoon had lulled them all into a contemplative heap desiring nothing more than tea and light conversation. But Joe had come to visit his mother with a stern objective; the sale of her house was pending, where would she go. He dreaded the thought of her moving in with him. Would she consent to live in the seniors complex up the road or would she see that as a resignation to death.



Birthday Party
By Katherine Brush

They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married.
They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The
man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in
a big hat.There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until
the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an Occasion—in
fact, the husband’s birthday, and the wife had planned a little surprise for him.

It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle
burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and
meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wife
beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the
restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help
was needed, because the husband was not pleased. Instead, he was hotly embarrassed,
and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.

You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, “Oh, now, don’t be like
that!” But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table,
and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted
from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath—some
punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman then, so
I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was
still crying when I finally glanced over there again. Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and
hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.
Copyright © 1946 The New Yorker. All rights reserved.
Originally published in The New Yorker.

In the workshop we discussed this piece and were asked the following questions:
How many characters-3
What do we know about each-man whose birthday it is, wife, dinner
Who is telling the story?-narrator a fellow diner in the restaurant
Why did the author chose this narrator?- dispassionate observer, had no opinion about the couple, judged by their actions only. It's the show don't tell rule of writing states of emotions.
If story told by different narrator how would it change?- if the husband or wife told the story there would be much more emotion attached to the story. It may be too melodramatic and loose readers in the overplay of emotion.
Comic or tragic, could it be comic?if husband it could be comic in a nasty way

Our exercise in the workshop was to rewrite this short story from a different perspective. I choose the perspective of the husband. As follows:


After all these years she thinks this will make up for her inattention, her snideness and her disregard for my welfare, my needs, my wants, my desires. Look at her in that hideous hat, flouting her fashion sense when it is me that has been paying for that sensibility for the past thirty years.

I should have been smarter younger, now it's too late. Her beauty is gone and so is my tolerance. I hope she knows this is the last little extravagance I plan to afford her.

Here it comes, the musicians are playing a birthday chorus and the waiter is bringing the cake.

Must she make a spectacle of us at every turning point. It has gotten so that I dread public outings. She's hoping for adulation from her fellow dinners because she know she won't get it from me. I know her too well to fall for this false celebration. This cake isn't for me, it's for her- to feed her own vanity by placing her at the center of attention.

Well I am not going to play her games anymore. And I tell her so. She starts to shed convincing tears and I look as evil as Hitler. To hell with it. God damn Happy Birthday to me.

“Waiter, bring me a scotch, double quick”





In the workshop we rewrote this poem using a different metaphor.
Original:
Theodore Roethke


Wish for a Young Wife

My lizard, my lively writher
May your limbs never wither
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice
Of envy's mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
May your hair ever blaze
In the sun, in the sun
When I am undone
When I am no one.

1964


My rewrite:

Wish for a young wife

My Herodotus, my multi-storied resource
May your pages never tear
May your ink remain bright
and not fade with my constant attention
or smear with unwonted tears
May you live out your life
On and off the shelf
without ridicule and criticism
And your binding ever strengthening
In the sun, in the sun
When I am undone,
When I am no one


Thanks to all those who participated, especially Sheldon for his great insight and exercises. And thank you to DesBarres Manor Inn for letting us use their terrific space to host the event.

Cat Fight

The other day I was privy to a little cattiness on the wall of one of my Facebook acquaintances. My friend, had indicated how excited she was about a guest speaker she was hosting at work, another Facebooker, who shall henceforth be known as Cat Woman, commented:
Before you learned of Shauntay Grants' visit..did you know who she was and what she does?

My bitch meter was automatically alerted and I felt incensed for my friend. Why was this woman trying to take her down, question her intelligence? Why did she find it necessary to take something good, happy and bright and turn it into something hurtful?

Friend's reply:Yes.

Me: and even if she didn't, there would always have been a time in our lives when we hadn't known of her yet.

Cat woman: What???I'm going to only drink one glass of wine and read that again cause it didn't make sense with glasses or maybe it was just the grammar or lack of.

I can't really speak to my grammar, I don't usually have a grammatical filter on my Facebook posts. I am a writer but I need my spell/grammar check function. My grammar, was clearly not the point I was trying to make but I found it amusing that Cat Woman would take the opportunity to aim her venom at yet another woman, one she did not even know.

Where has this attitude of women against women come from? A friend of mine suggested there were some feminists theories about that but after a not very intensive search on the net, I have not found any profound answers.

Today I went to a memorial service for the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. I had already started this post when I blogged off to attend the service and in the back of my mind I thought, “How can women expect men to respect us and afford us peace if we can not do it amongst ourselves?” I am not saying that catty women justify some male attitudes about violence against women, just that it is, in a small way, not helping the situation. It's hard to respect a group who don't respect themselves.

Women will never all get along but it would be fabulous if we could stop trying to pull each other down. One day an unknown woman pulled her car up next to my house as she was leaving the nearby tourist office. She rolled down her window and called out to me on my front yard, “That hair colour looks really good on you.” “Thanks,” I said.

I try to never miss an opportunity to pay a compliment, befriend a lonely soul, or speak up for people I feel are being denigrated. When I left the memorial service today, preparing to come home and finish this piece, there was a vibrant rainbow encompassing the Guysborough sky. Trite as it seems, it gave me hope that women might start being a little nicer to each other.

Photo Journal around Guysborough

My first day with only one child in tow, lovely, sunny and breezy. Time for a photo tour of my fair village.

The DesBarres Manor is across from our house. It's a Luxury 10 bed Manor house, now open as an upscale Inn.

Kitty Corner to us is The Old Court House Museum. I worked there the summer I graduated from High School. I was constantly warned off fornicating in the little bed in the exhibit room by a matronly lady that I worked with.


Atheist that I am, I live smack dab between two churches. The Catholic Church is to the right and the United to the left. As a child I did attend the United Church. The Catholic Church is currently served by a minister from Nigeria (i think). It has taken some time but I think the natives have gotten used to him.
In my younger days there was a priest here whose name was father Huntley but he was called Father Hunky behind his back. I am sure many young women went to Mass in those days hoping to lure him away from the cloth.

Somehow, I have lost the picture I took of the United church, but here is the lovely deadwood beside it.
And next to the United Church is the Mason's Lodge. Lord knows what goes on there, but they have a lovely new sign this week. Thought I would feature it here.


Next we are going on down the hill to the Wonder Store. This building used to be a creaky old wooden structure painted an amazing red. As kids we occasionally collected bottles off the roadside and went for a trash run to the Wonder Store; it was wondrous.


Across from the Wonder Store in the Old Firehouse, which is now the Mulgrave Road Co-op Theater Company.
As a child we held kindergarten and 4-H in the second story of this building which was the fire hall. I have great memories of black out blinds and macaroni crafts loaded with glue.

Next up, or I should say down, is the waterfront. This is the place where we have our Farmer's Market and Ceilidhs in the summer. The Marina is just behind this building. It's a favorite spot for graduation pics. The Boat launch, is also where the swim portion of the Guysborough Triathlon is held. Suki and I watched the swimmers this year and clapped for them all when they pulled themselves out of the harbour.



Today we spotted this lovely morning glory poking out along the shore near the marina.

Next stop, our local paper. This is a weekly publication which I think stays afloat on the patronage boat. I'm not complaining. I love having the paper here in town- just one more little check mark on our cultural score card.


Up the hill, and we spot a lovely woodpile.

A little further and we get to Christ Church. I can only remember going into this church once; for my Great Grandmother Laura Dort's funeral. I was about 7 years old.

The Church has a great old grave yard in the back and I often let the kids go running around in there. I am sure the sound of the children will lift some of the spirits lurking therein.


Past a few more buildings and almost home.

My neighbors, have a lovely house behind ours. Today I discovered that they also have an amazing peach tree and a very cute doorbell.

And that is our morning tour of my little spot in the universe.
Hope you enjoyed it.

Home again, home again, jiggity, jig, jig.