Annual Foolishness 2014

Dear Kith and Kin

Hurray! the  quilt square I contribute every year to the quilt we raffle to raise money for Storytellers of Canada’s recording project is in the mail to Alberta.  For the story of the inspiration for quilt and this year’s Annual Foolishness Greeting Header- a quote from a 14th century English mystic named Julian of Norwich  - a woman actually, see details on my other blog http://elinorbenjamin.blogspot.ca  There are stories and pictures of  previous quilts on our website http://www.storytellers-conteurs.ca/quilt.html   

With God’s help and a toothpick - as my Aunt Ruth used to say -  I will soon be free of my marathon stint as webmaster of this organization. This escape has been slower than the lava flow from Kilauea.  

Our Dartmouth Choral Society (DCS) concert was a great success yon Dec 7th. You can hear our exit number at  https://soundcloud.com/dartmouthchoralsociety/hearth-and-fire.   I’ve sung another Kurt Weill song  - Youkali - at my singing teacher’s end of term recital to positive feedback. A field recording exists as proof but is not going on YouTube. I also sang an “amusing”, and almost unknown, Irving Berlin number at DCS’s 60th birthday party - That Mesmerising Mendelssohn Tune (1909). It has a very slight YouTube presence, probably the measure of its worth, but it was suitable for the occasion as we were singing a Mendelssohn piece at our concert.  I should now aspire to learning a real song by  Mendelssohn. Now, at last, I can think about getting Annual Foolishness up and running and get some Christmas cards out into the world before Groundhog Day.

I’m still waiting for that Wordsworthian moment of tranquillity in which to reflect upon the emotions of 2014, but it’s not happening. That, dear kith and kin, is why I write prose instead of poetry. Be grateful -  very grateful!  I used to write bad poetry in my youth. Ron just arrived home with the first box of clementines this season.  Each of us remembers the citrus of childhood. In my case, the exotic tangerines came shipped from my grandfather’s orchard in Florida to frigid northern New Brunswick in a wicker hamper. Greater suspense proceeded the basket of grapefruit, fancy oranges, tangerines and the kumquats, than the safe arrival of Santa, who, after all, was comfortable with northern climes. Would the fruit arrive without having been frozen en route?  Not always. I once got in a fight with a boy in grade 5 - a smart-aleck from Montréal whose mother had a mink coat - who tried to tell me that kumquats were a kind of nut. I knew my citrus, even though I ‘minds’ that it was a rare thing in ‘them days’.  In Ron’s youth, mandarins from China arrived on the West Coast and thence to Calgary. I suppose if mandarins came from China, tangerines must originally have come from Tangiers. Wouldn’t you think clementines should come from Clemencey?  Perhaps you wouldn’t. This box says Maroc and we will enjoy them anyway. We seldom see mandarins around here - unless you count that crowd in Ottawa :-(  

What has happened to the globe since last I wrote?  So much grief in the world, it seems impossible it can be contained on one small planet, and occasionally, an item of note such as The European Space Agency’s landing a robot on a comet - the equivalent of landing a mosquito on a speeding bullet, as I heard one commentator observe - an astonishing feat, even though the robot is now in a shadow and has lost its power.  I’m not sure how much humanity benefits from sort of thing, but you never can tell. It certainly does not benefit from the never-ending terror, torture and intimidation, any more than it did when my ancestors were beheading and/or being beheaded for reading the Bible in English - not so very long ago in the history of the world. 

Our Dear Leader is basking in the glory of having one of the Franklin Expedition ships discovered on his watch. Much money was poured into this project to ensure it would happen on his watch, perhaps the money “saved” by slashing and burning many other less projects with less mythic potential, like the CBC, services to our new war veterans, or research on how to avoid the more extreme effects of global warming. They have already admitted they were doing it to assert Arctic sovereignty. I suspect that it is more about “seeking gold and glory” than our sharing our wonderment with Stan Rogers at “hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea.”  It’s part of Canadian mythology. By coincidence, a day later we accompanied Dad to a rather odd, almost secret, ceremony hosted by Veterans’ Affairs  where we met the personable, Rear Admiral John Newton, just home from the Franklin discovery; we enjoyed hearing his first hand account. His enthusiasm was infectious. Media representation was curiously thin - perhaps through fear of ministerial gaffes? - which do abound, frequently, from the minister involved.  We were not alone in wondering when this event might surface as a photo op to offset the public outcry at the our government appalling treatment of our current veterans. Ron heard a cynical grumble from one of the elderly vets he encountered in the loo. I confess, I ate the sumptuous hors d'oeuvre, swallowing my guilt, thinking of homeless veterans a few blocks away, and enjoyed the lovely woodwind quintet, too. Canada has added a few members to the club of celebrities falling from grace, which, of course, offers great distraction from Canada’s larger failings on the world stage - especially on the environmental front.  It is hard to remain unaffected by all the noise. Mercifully, we are among the fortunate to have found a few things to keep ourselves somewhat distracted until it all falls apart. 

With Dad, Pete Luckett and
Aunt Doris, now 90

We haven’t strayed far this year. We don’t like leaving Dad on his own, but there is lots to do right here in Nova Scotia, and we did enjoy some company - especially stragglers from my storytelling conference. When Dad was visiting my brother in New Brunswick, we  had a mini-vacation visiting Annapolis Valley wineries and stayed in a beautifully situated B & B near Cape Split. Lunch on the terrace of Luckett’s vineyard in Gaspereau, overlooking the World Heritage approved view of the Bay of Fundy on a beautiful sunny day in August is about as good as it gets anywhere. We took Dad and my Aunt Doris for lunch in September but it was a little chillier then. They provide blankets. Pete greeted us in person at the door. He started his career as a vegetable barrow man, then became a charming presence at the Saint John, NB market, a TV personality, an entrepreneur of an upscale grocery in Bedford with branches in Halifax and Wolfville, and finally launched his own vineyard - which is, I think, a great passion. What fun he seems to be having.  A worthy immigrant!! - from Nottingham.   Annapolis Valley white wines are getting better every year, but more expensive than their foreign competitors. We buy them anyway. There is a very exciting producer located at Benjamin Bridge, site of an ancestral saw mill operation. We have nothing to do with the vineyard, alas. They are producing some spectacular sparkling wines in the traditional style, but we can’t afford the most spectacular. The lesser ones are still very good. 

Marthe Bernard, Mary-Lynn Bernard, Andy Jones,
Elinor Benjamin and Kate Sanders,
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party Mar 15, 2014
after our children's show.

I got to the March Hare in Corner Brook, always a time of re-connection with many dear , dear people like those on the left.  I took a short trip to New York for a workshop with my storytelling mentor, Laura Simms, which included a “field trip” to the weekly storytelling session at the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park, quick visits with my two high school friends in Westchester and New Jersey and a wonderful lunch with a bedsitter flatmate from my days in London  (Eeek!  1976?) and his lovely wife, whom I had never met. They live in Nyack, very close to Pearl River, where I went to High School. I  also went to Ottawa for a week-end to hear the Ottawa storytellers present their day-long epic telling of The Iliad, and visit more friends.  All this was stupendous. 

Kith and Kin at the Shore Inn,
Hubbard's, for Dad's 93th Birthday July 27.

Ron’s only venture out of the Maritimes, alas, was to fly to Calgary for the funeral of Ron Stevens, a dear friend since elementary school. That was a shock for everyone. He was able to stay another day and spend it with Ron’s wife, Phyllis, whom he has known since university days. Our family has lost a major elder - Dad’s cousin Allen, who was living in Florida. He was the family historian, and published his results in a little book which we have all cherished for years. This leaves Dad as the last of 10 Benjamin  cousins still alive, which has to be a little strange. We celebrated his 93rd birthday in July with a lobster supper at the Shore Club in Hubbard’s. As a result of the memorial service for Allen, we had the opportunity to become better acquainted with a number of relatives and finally got to see the old family burial plot in Brookfield, and visit Allen's son and wife in Pugwash.  I hope I can find the cemetery again. If you are reading this on my blog, you can go back to August and read the tribute I delivered at Allen’s memorial service. 

A 4-pounder to share at the
New Glasgow Lobster Supper

My annual storytelling conference was in nearby Prince Edward Island. We took Dad with us there, and spent a few days afterwards eating and visiting friends and relations, partaking of summer theatre, and an old Richards family tradition:  the lobster supper in New Glasgow, the village where Ron’s mother was born.  It is truly the best we’ve had anywhere. At the conference, I took advantage of my little spot on the conference programme to tell Pete Seeger’s version of Dick Whittington and his Cat;  it is a kinder and gentler version, less a legendary testament to capitalist speculation. It seemed like the right thing to do. Pete Seeger was a sublime inspiration to so many of us - a life to be celebrated, remembered and emulated. Too bad the efforts to get him a Nobel Peace Prize did not succeed. 

Undoubtedly, one thrill this year was organizing a successful concert for Laura Simms at the St. Mary’s Art Gallery which took place in the midst of Dartmouth Artist,Rose Adams’ wonderful 25 year retrospective Bird, Bones and Brains, an inspiration for an exciting evening of storytelling with a good crowd.  Our friend, Michael Parker is part of a group called Musikon. They produce several concerts a year of contemporary Canadian music at the Gallery, which is where I got the idea. Their recent conference presented during a wonderful show called Camp Fire: Queer Baroque   http://thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/1250878-musikon-goes-crazy-for-baroque

Another highlight was singing with Canta Mara, a once-a-year choir organized by the Nova Scotia Choral Federation to participate in a workshop and “Big Sing” with a guest choir. This year it was the splendid Elmer Iseler Singers, from Toronto. You get the music in advance, practice on your own, and show up for a day-long rehearsal 9:00 am - 9:00 pm with the Choir’s director Lydia Adams and Assistant Director Mitchell Cady, “ready to make music.”  Then you sing with them in a concert the next day.  Ron had a mathematician friend, sadly gone, who was a fine jazz pianist, who stated that one of his life’s ambitions was to be good enough to “play with the black guys”.  It’s one of those useful little catch phrases that crops up on various occasions in our lives when the subject of excellence comes up.  After the concert Ron  said: “You were singing with the black guys.”  Actually, all I did was pay for the workshop, which was a bargain, spend a week closeted with the music and YouTube, and get myself to the rehearsal, but I did feel ready to make music with a grand group of people.  It was a uplifting experience. 

Canta Mara and Elmer Iseler Singers with honoured audience member,Scott Jones, the young choir director from Nova Scotia who was so badly injured in a hate attack last year, and who has become such a inspiration with his “Don’t be Afraid” campaign. I’m in middle row, 2nd from left behind piano. Lydia Adams is in front with Scott. 

Ron’s had some lyrical moments this year, too. His performing group, the Thistle Dancers performed a nearly error-free version of a difficult dance, The Saltire Cross, at St. Matthews Church Summer Noon Concert Series. This is the church where Wayne Rogers is the musical director, and coincidentally the church in the picture above as well. I sang in several of Wayne's choirs when we both lived in Corner Brook. As the non-dancing "groupie",  I  shot the video. They were the first group to post it on You Tube:

He also performed at Government House where: Their Honours were pleased to welcome the Jane Austen Society of North America (NS) and the Playford Dancers for a fascinating presentation on the enduring fascination of Jane Austen and her world.  
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lieutenantgovernor/13630775253/in/photostream/

He’s also had very positive feedback on his skills at “briefing” dances, from a real Scottish Dance Expert 

My First Selfie

Bits of Constantine   

My first Selfie:  Chanelling a body part remaining from the huge statue of Emperor Constantine in the Capitoline Museum, to express my opinion on the microbe that invaded my arm after carpal tunnel surgery in May.  Actually - not  quite the first. Years ago I took a picture  of my toes in the Roman Bath at Bath with a film camera. A what? !  ? ?   Constantine employs a different one of the 250 known Italian hand gestures than I have chosen.  Care to speculate?   The Turkish marble in our bathroom was as close as I could get it get to the original setting. Speaking of body parts, I am now on “The List” for a knee replacement, as are half the people I know. Could be an up to two years wait, but I’m not exactly that enthusiastic to engage in more surgery. I still have to get the other carpal tunnel done.

The silver lining of illness is permission to be slothful. I went on a Josephine Tey binge while recovering from the infection. Having the complete works on my Kindle was a “deal” and didn’t require two hands to hold. I read my favourite, Daughter of Time, once again (3rd or 4th time?), and as for the others I have the kind of memory that never remembers who dunnit, which means I can re-read  favourites over and over again and still enjoy them. This enforced “rest” period, also brought on a indulgent week of Netflix binge-ing - including the entire House of Cards series. I should have been watching and reading more upbeat and edifying material, no?  It makes you wonder if there are any honest people anywhere in positions of power.  I tried reading a bestseller, a Joy Fielding novel, and made myself finish it even though it was boring. One of the non-boring books I read was Raj Patel’s  The Value of Nothing. He tells why a McDonald’s hamburger really costs us all $250 - if you add the taxpayer subsidies to agribusiness, food stamps and social assistance that enable corporations to get away with paying such appallingly low wages. There were some things that Adam Smith didn't even predict. Observant as he was, who could have predicted the amoral multi-national corporation beholden to no one. Aha!  Eisenhower did.  I read Adam Smith while in the hospital 10 years ago with the Real Infection. Quite a charming writing style, too, and not too large a tome for holding in a weakened state. Each chapter is a concrete little nugget, good for one sitting.  His  ideas have been co-opted and corrupted, just like every other wise man's.  Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda, a novel based on re-telling the story of  the first contact between the Jesuits and Hurons in a new light, was high on my list this year - a most worthy addition to Canadian canon. My cousin, Chris Benjamin, has just published Indian School Road on the shameful history of the residential school in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, another sad chapter in the long history of imperialism and cultural destruction. Then - on to a life of self-destruction Savage Beauty, a life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford. And even more grim, I turned to The Rape of Europa by Lynn Nicholas. I haven’t seen The Monuments Men, the film that was based on the real events, but I cannot imagine it could reproduce in the time of a film, all the evil. Oh my dears, imperialism, cultural destruction, and looting art are nothing new under the sun - obelisks, Elgin Marbles, Roman horses nicked from Constantinople, etc, etc  - but the scale was unimaginably Byzantine. The 20th century was pretty unimaginable, and the 21st looks to be shaping up to follow closely in its tracks. If people think they can get away with things, they will certainly try. I continue to send grumpy letters to editors, and government ministers and the PM, and post links to outrages on  Facebook. I am turning into a fine old termigant. People prefer my cat photo and food postings, and who could blame them. 

Our household is diminished. Who would believe that we would be down to one cat in one year. The two elders, Clara and Sam, “dwindled,” as our friend Lorraine puts it, after having lived respectably long lives for their species, but bouncy little Amanda, acquired a mysterious infection at age 12, and we lost her suddenly, in the spring, just before Clara. We think Otis, the orange one, the survivor, may still be in shock, or a state of gratitude. Unfortunately we can’t tell which. The week before Thanksgiving 1) we took Sam to the vet, and he did not return home; 2) I went away with my friend, Kira, to the wonderful Singing Storytellers Symposium in Cape Breton, and did not come home for a week; 3) Ron took Dad to the hospital after a dizzy spell and fall, the day after I left, and left him there overnight - he was rescued by a caring postman who brought him home and came by later to follow up. Who will do things like that in the new Canada, the one that Harper promised we “won’t recognize?” ; and 4) Ron and Dad drove to Cape Breton to fetch me, and stayed overnight for Thanksgiving dinner with Ron’s relatives. All of these departures in one week left Otis an altered beast. We are not quite ready to commit our hearts  to acquiring and vetting a new feline, but are going to take in a winter boarder for a few months while his owners go south after Christmas - a cuddly, long-haired black fellow of 17 named Denver. He has been over one afternoon for a play date, and no blood was shed, and he is here for a sleepover as I write. 

We are, all three of us  “dwindling,” but are generally in good spirits and grateful for the good life we live in our cozy little house in Dartmouth. Our community contains its measure of the evils of the world - and the good, too.  For now, we stave off despair over necessary losses with the things that keep us all afloat - family,  friends, good company and the arts. We wish that - All will be well  - with you this Season and in the coming year. 

Elinor (and Ron and Bob and Otis)

This portrait of Claire/Clara mainly know as "Mummy" was painted by my new "cousin-in-law-in-law" Janet Warnes-Morris. She is a retired primary art teacher.

And below is the one she did of Amanda. Why won't blogger let me space these pictures the way I want them :-(  


Here we are with Sam the day in October when the vet confirmed that he had cancer.

and poor Otis, our sole survivor. 

He didn't like having his picture taken by the vet.

Remembering Allen Benjamin, Family Historian

Remembering Allen Benjamin, Family Historian  Nov 3, 1920 - Jul 25, 2014
Spoken at Wyndholme Christian Church, Aug 7, 2014

I first wish to express my condolences to Rod, Scott, Jamie on the loss of their father and to all other members of the family. A special thank you, Rod for asking me to say a few words today. I didn’t know him well in my early years, but later, especially after he married my Aunt Shirley, and became not only my first cousin once-removed, but my uncle by marriage, we connected over our interest in genealogy. That is mostly what I will tell you about today. I do have fond memories of Allen and Shirley showing up in their RV at  my doorstep in Corner Brook, with a huge salmon they had acquired from a fisherman by who knows what sort of negotiations. At the time I didn’t have a big enough pot, but we got ‘er cooked anyway. Dad tells stories of riding his bicycle from Brookfield, with Cousin Fred, to visit John and Allen in Dartmouth. In those days, that was a bumpy trip. 

I’d like to read an email from Bruce Benjamin, also a cousin-once removed, who is presently en route to Winnipeg for work.

I have always been so very grateful of Allen’s massive undertaking regarding our family tree and his publishing and sharing of the book and 'tree' booklet with the coat of arms. Countless times I've been able to proudly state a long lineage in Nova Scotia, and in fact back to 1598 in Kent, England. I've not actually met many people that can do a similar ancestral reflection. When I recite the trip of John and Abigail Benjamin, their ages, the date, the name of the ship, etc., [that brough them to North America in 1632] jaws typically drop a little and their eyes do a wee gloss-over with amazement.  Allen  supplied me with copies of the booklet to give to my sons who also take pride in their roots and a gratification to have such a fine resource at their fingertips. I hope it's a great gathering, my thoughts will be there.

With Bruce’s message in hand, I am confident, that I am speaking on behalf of all the Benjamin family when I say how lucky we are to know the story of how we came to be  Nova Scotians of  the 21st century.  I am always sad to hear of people who cannot find their stories. Stories of people finding their long-lost relatives make for some of the more uplifting shows on television these days.  I can’t think of a more intimate and enjoyable way to learn history than to know how you fit into it - for good or ill - and that is the gift that Allen bequeathed to our entire family. As I talk, I shall quote  generously  from Allen’s booklet Obadiah Benjamin of Nova Scotia.  

Allen began his project to trace the Nova Scotia Benjamins because of  a promise to his bachelor Uncle Frank, who spent many years collecting and making notes in an effort to trace his own  grandfather, James Harvey Benjamin of Gay’s River. When Frank died in 1967, Allen received the notes but couldn’t begin the job until he retired from his career as professional photographer in 1972. Looking back to the work of Uncle Frank and Allen in the age before the internet, I stand in awe. 

To Frank’s notes, Allen added the power of the Public Archives, the telephone and the car. His son, Jamie, collected all the Nova Scotia phone books and listed all the Benjamin phone numbers he could find. Then came conversations and cups of  tea enjoyed  around the province with people pleased to share their wealth of information and stories. Every now and then I have found myself in a conversation with people like Gloria Fisher (nee Benjamin), long-time proprietor of Fisher’s Stationery Store on Portland Street who remembers Allen in the days when he was “on the trail.”  

The Benjamins were not the first tribe to enjoy this pleasant land. As is so often the case in history, the first Benjamins came as part of a wave of immigration that displaced others -  in our case, the Acadians, expelled by the British in 1755, after over a hundred years of settlement upon land previously inhabited by the first nation peoples. It seems the British had not considered that expelling the people who supplied your food might be not be the wisest way to colonize.  “Thus, an announcement of free lands in Nova Scotia was published in the Boston Gazette in April 1759. Meetings were held and an agent sent to Nova Scotia to inspect ...  He reported that the land was of excellent quality with fruit trees and upland fields of flax and corn and dyke lands growing five tons of hay per acre. “ And that was how Allen’s 4th great grand-father, Obadiah Benjamin, and his first wife, Mary Hurd,  arrived from Preston, Connecticut at Horton’s Landing on June 4th  1760 with 22 boat loads of other settlers known to history as the New Englander Planters. You can visit the modest memorial cairn by taking a right turn onto Horton Crossing road, a little before the Just us Coffee Shop in Grand Pre, then right again onto Railway Street onto Wharf Road which ends at a farm. Then, you will have to walk into the middle of a farmer’s field. I am sure you will be walking in Allen’s footsteps. I know I am walking in them as I wander through the old graveyards in Noel Shore, Wolfville and Scott’s Bay. I followed them further onto the internet in the 80's when access to the huge Mormon data base was free. Although I learned many facts, I do  envy Allen those cups of tea and the stories shared in country parlours and kitchens with living people. 

One of the amusing facts I came upon, which I am sure that Allen would enjoy,  was that we - like 20% of North Americans - have our  Mayflower Ancestor - one  John "Billington, Allen’s 8th great-grandfather, my 9th.  Billington was  an ancestor Obadiah’s wife, Mary Hurd. He was not of the puritan faith, but one of a number of other travellers on the Mayflower, and known both aboard the vessel and in the Plymouth colony as a “troublemaker”.  In September 1630 he was tried by a jury and hanged for the murder of John Newcomen, whom he saw as an enemy. This was the first such execution in the new  colony, confirming the opinion of another New Englander, Ralph Waldo Emerson, that  “Man is physically, as well as metaphysically, a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start.”  

The stories collected and recorded by Allen prove the astuteness of Emerson’s observation, and demonstrate the great variety of lives lived by the many descendants of one of Nova Scotia’s English-speaking pioneers, as they moved on from the difficulties of pioneer life to the challenges of our own interesting times. The Benjamins have transformed from being a close-knit tribe in the Valley to a family enriched with new members from around the world.

As we join here today to remember our family historian, Allen, you will, no doubt,  be recalling your own stories of his time among us, and I hope we’ll be hearing a lot of them.  To quote the wisdom of Doctor Who   ...  we’re all stories in the end.

Elinor Benjamin

The link to the Chronicle Herald Obituary is no longer active. Here is the text of the Obituary published on July 31st ?

R. Allen Benjamin

Robert Allen Benjamin passed on peacefully in The Cloisters Retirement Community in Deland, Fla., on July 25, 2014, at the age of 93. Allen was born on November 3, 1920, in Brookfield, to Stairs Benjamin and Frances Helen (Titus) Benjamin. In his youth after his family moved to Dartmouth, Allen was active in Scouting; he and his brother John were the first in Dartmouth to become King's Scouts. Later he was active in the Kiwanis and the Maritime Professional Photographers Association. Allen was an entrepreneur and local pioneer in photography, a passion of his from an early age. His father having died young, Allen started early making a living.  Being disqualified from the Military for  health reasons he took several newspaper routes, hiring friends to assist as needed.  At the age of 17, with a staff of 12, he opened the first photo-finishing laboratory in. Dartmouth. He also had exciting times in press  photograahy;  being on the VE  Day riots and the Bedford Magazine explosion.  After studying photography in New York City,  he opened the first photographic business in Dartmouth, with studios and shops in several locations over the years. He also owned several apartment buildings around. Dartmouth.  

Upon his retirement he devoted his time to researching the history of the Nova Scotia branch of the family,  from its arrival in America in 1632 and its roots prior to that.  He published his findings in the booklet, "Obediah Benjamin of Nova Scotia".  He relocated to Florida and remarried,  spending his time in travel  and enjoying retirement.  He was predeceased by his daughter, Wanda; brother, John and wife Shirley (Roberts) Benjamin.  He is survived by sons, Roderick (Judy), Scott, James and his first wife, Elizabeth (Jones);  grandchildren, Jacqueline, Michael and Susan and great-grandchildren:  Chase, Oliver and Nygel.  He is also survived by sisters-in-law, Audrey Hemmin, and Pauline Benjamin;  brother-in-law, Bob Benjamin; stepdaughter, Sharon (Hebert);  step grandsons, Tyler and Noah and special friend in Deland, Fla.,  Mary Lou Bauer and many nieces and nephews.  Special thanks to the staff  of The Cloisters Of Deland  and to Vitas Hospice Care for the care and attention they afforded Allen while he was there, and  particularly during his illness. A memorial service will be held in Windholm Christian Church, Windholm Avenue, Dartmouth, on Thursday, August 7 at 2 p.m. His ashes will be interred in the family plot in East Side Cemetery at Brookfield,  in a private ceremony at a later date. Memorial donations may be made to the [Wyndholme]  Christian Church or to the charity of your choice. 

Annual Foolishness 2013

As I have several friends who cannot see, or if you prefer to listen rather than read, click the  MP3 audio file  It is about 20 minutes long.

About halfway through The 2012 Christmas Card Project, I foundered. I can’t even find the cards that weren’t sent, so I have to start from scratch this year. I just read somewhere that it is okay to start from scratch every day of your life - a worthy maxim for terminal  procrastinators. A further motivation:  Canada Post announced, a huge postal increase (about $.25) on Jan 1 and elimination of door-to-door delivery within the next 5 years. It may not a  be a huge inconvenience for us until we are more decrepit, but job losses and cost to business will  be significant. Why do  these announcements always come just before Christmas - like Kellogg’s in London, On. Who will be left to sacrifice to the Golden Goddess of  Consumerism when no one has a good job or modest pension?

Amid  anniversaries of massacres, and continuing man-made and “natural” disasters, we have lost Nelson Mandela, a man whose name has resonated from the time we began calling for his release, and  boycotting  South African wine,  to joining the throngs in  Montréal to greet him in June 1990 and watching the amazing events that unfolded afterwards. To have in our lifetime even one  such individual in our weary world, rising “above the sad and lowly plains” is miraculous. Alas, the “men of strife” will not “ hush the noise” to listen for the angels. Hmmm?  Those old hymns are often hard-hitting when you look more closely beyond the familiar first verse. Thank you Edmund Sears for the poetry of  “It came upon a midnight clear”.

We had a VERY noisy year in Canada with an embarras de richesses of public figures wallowing in greed, entitlement, lies, cheating, denials,  shallow apologies, appalling shenanigans and intrigue to avoid discovery. The spin doctors are in dervish mode;  the Buck never stops. The powerful collude to divide, befuddle and sell our futures and our livelihoods to the highest bidder. Just imagine what might be accomplished if all the money spent  by oil companies and  our federal government on propaganda were re-directed  toward alternative energy development, finding better ways to house those cast out by increasing social disparity, and helping damaged soldiers and people whose lives have been ruined  by disasters and the "economy". Most annoying are federal “Action Plan” ads paid for with tax dollars. It’s hard work to try to turn anger into something resembling compassion for the likes of  Duffy, Wallin and Ford with their hubris on steroids - or mental instability in the case of the latter. Mandela showed a powerful  way, but the road is long and few of us are brave or strong.  Many talk;  how many walk the walk?  We need stories of goodness, not just of great souls, but in ordinary lives. 

David with his favourite
"kind of Coke":   Root Beer

I turn to two such lives near and dear to us.  In July, Ron’s brother, David, died after several months of such diminished quality of life that he lost the determination that had marked so much of his life. His roommate of decades, Michael,  died in February, surviving many years beyond what was expected for someone with his complicated and rare condition:  Coffin-Lowry Syndrome . We think David’s system simply could not  handle such a great change in his life. Within a month he, too, was in the hospital on life support, with pneumonia,  an aneurysm and surgery, and a rapid decline into helplessness: respirator, tracheotomy,  feeding tube,  and enforced immobility –  not things   easy for any of us, let alone, David, who didn’t much like people touching him. Ron visited in May and came back hopeful.  David’s wonderful team in Calgary tried  to figure out ways for him to be at home again, but it was not to be. The doctor called from the hospital for permission to stop interventions at the end of July and in less than a day he was gone, and we were en route to Calgary. I still haven’t done all the thank you notes. I still feel a low.  This summer,  Ron also lost his dear Uncle Aubrey in Cape Breton, who had lived a long and full life, and his cousin Patty, 64 in Ontario who lived a good life, but too short. And there were so many good  friends and neighbors. The list grows longer every year. We are at that age.  David's memorial page will be here until August:   David's Memorial Page


Last year I was immersed in the Roman Empire, the Burgundians and Goths, Brynhild and Siegfried, and the other characters of the Nibelungenlied. I still am, but have sidetracked through Caesar’s own account of his conquest of Gaul, which is far more interesting than I thought it would  be. Of course, it is rife with genocide, as rebellious Gaulish tribes vanish from the face of the planet, just as the wrong tribes did in the Old Testament - and sadly still do.  I continue to read about the religions of other people, otherwise known as mythology, and the mythology of the one in which I was raised, which is a rich trove, too. I’ve discovered British classicist, Bettany Hughes, and enjoyed her very readable books on Socrates and Helen of Troy. Hope she writes more. Imagine my surprise to come downstairs and find Ron watching a documentary on Alexandria with Bettany Hughes. Perhaps I will be a classicist in the next life. At my summer intensive storytelling workshop with Laura Simms  in New York this summer, I worked on the story of Io who was turned into a cow, but am now turning toward cats for another story project to be entitled Holy Cats. Now that I’ve written that down, it means I have to stop procrastinating and get it up and running or I’ll be very embarrassed if/when I write Annual Foolishness 2014. I'm slowly escaping from being webmaster for Storytellers of Canada so I can get on with these imagined projects. Tempus fugit!  We’ve hired a designer and a project manager. My role is to provide content, background and 12 years of ?wisdom as this unfolds. My own wee website molders from inattention, a victim of being the shoemaker’s child; ergo, Annual Foolishness is still on a blog - maybe it always will be. I’ve been reading a lot this year – never enough, of course – but have especially enjoyed: Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds  by Natalie Zemon Davis who also wrote The Return of Martin Guerre; The Swerve: How the World Became Modern  by Stephen Greenblatt; Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies and all three of the Call the Midwife  books. Ron and I enjoy Simon Schama’s documentaries, and the Met Opera Live in HD broadcasts.

In addition to singing with Dartmouth Choral Society, I’ve joined the choir at Dad’s church (United) which is conducted  by the excellent Malcolm Bradley, who also conducts the Choral Society. They were looking for altos, even this pagan alto. We generally sing interesting music, though every now and then concessions are made to some rather sappy modern things. I may be a pagan, but I prefer staunch old pre-20th century Protestant hymns. I’ve even been doing some Scripture readings. When approached to do this - because of the mellifluous voice in which I read the lectures before the opera broadcasts :-)  –  I did make full disclosure of my pagan state and said, “.. well if the Lord don’t mind, I don’t.”  Apparently he didn’t. No thunderbolts struck the church, or me, so I expect we’re okay.  The Dartmouth Choral Society took on a large project in the spring, The Peacemakers by Welsh composer, Karl Jenkins, with three massed choirs and an orchestra. My impression was that this is a sometimes saccharine piece, but it certainly is fun to sing in 150-voice choir with an orchestra . One night at rehearsal, Halifax soprano, Jennifer Farrell, and came by to announce a summer workshop called “Sing Yourself Well” run by her, Gary Ewer and Wayne Rogers, in whose choirs I sang in Corner Brook many years ago. Given that dancing, long walks, leaping tall buildings, or even riding my bike (I fell off it once too often this summer and did some fairly permanent damage to my hip), are not on my can-do list anymore, I heard this workshop call my name loudly. I spent a few months trying to stretch away the pain, before I learned that I had injured more than my dignity, and was prescribed a serious “rest” period and a lot of sitting on ice. Thus, I am taking private singing lessons, for the first time in my life, from Jennifer Farrell, and was diagnosed a soprano at the workshop after years of singing alto. I still sing alto in the church choir as altos, pagan or otherwise, are needed. So are tenors, but I can’t do anything about that though I did volunteer. Malcolm is letting me sing soprano in Choral Society. Last week, we did a concert of Bach’s cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern and Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Blue Engine String Quartet and 2 French Horns - no partridge in a Pear Tree, though, and had good reviews.  I’ve blundered my way through two recitals singing Yum Yum’s song from The Mikado, The sun whose rays… ,  and an Italian art song, Pur Dicesti, O Bocca, Bocca Bella. I come from lessons glossy and happy. It is more about process than results. I do not come from physiotherapy appointments for a  frozen shoulder with as much glee. I head to the Italian market for mushroom cheese torta, the ultimate comfort food - and a completely counterproductive gluten fix. I hope this will be more about results than process.

Cherry blossoms in Newark

Our travels are becoming smaller: Corner Brook in March, and a short visit in April to New York for as many hours of opera as you could get for the buck: Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Wagner’s  Siegfried  with my own hero, Jay Hunter Morris from Paris, Texas. He is one who replied to my fan email last year. We visited my high school friends Tamsen and Bobbi and their husband and were taken out for the meal of our lives at a place called  Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a serious locavore habitat in Tarrytown. Ron discovered it is # 63 on a list of 100 best restaurants in the world. I bet that’s the only time we will ever experience one of those. Ron also learned you can buy sous-vide machines for home kitchens - this from an interesting couple we chatted with at a restaurant we went to after Siegfried. Bobbi and Ed took us to a recital at Newark Cathedral which has an impressive pipe organ. We had a tour the Cathedral by an most enthusiastic priest who was clearly passionate about the wonderful building. It was cherry blossom time in Newark. Who knew?  They have more cherry trees there than they do in Washington DC. The park along the river was filled with Japanese visitors eating picnic lunches under the blossoms. We went to the Newark Museum which is a little gem. I had visited it before, but Ron had never seen it, and we had lunch in an Irish pub in Pearl River, New York where I went to high school. The 50th anniversary reunion is in August, but I doubt I will get to it. 

The Storytellers of Canada conference was held in Ottawa  and we were there for Canada Day. Canada’s celebrity astronaut, Chris Hadfield, was among the folks on stage on Parliament Hill. Wanna bet he'll go into politics, eh? There were wonderful musical groups on the streets. The mood was lovely. I enjoyed the mothers in niqabs and abayas clapping along while their boys step danced to the bluegrass band, and a  performance of Capoeira which was new to me. We ate at Murray Street Restaurant in Byward Market three times!  One of the partners is a Newfoundlander; we love the place. I won a $250 VIA rail travel voucher at the last conference; it seemed appropriate to take the train to this one. It was so relaxing, unlike plane travel, but the return trip would have cost far more than two plane tickets home so we flew. That just doesn’t seem right. We managed an all-too -brief visit to Ron’s brother in Brockville.

Ron continues with his Scottish country dancing and is on the executive of the performing group now. He’s kept very busy and as much in demand being 1) a man, and  2)  a man with a kilt. He was at a week-long Scottish country dance teaching workshop in Sackville, New Brunswick when we got the call about his brother, and I had fetch him. He continues to acquire culinary toys. I should be grateful it isn’t snowmobiles or motorcycles, but I’m worried about parrots. I don’t want any creature that is going to outlive us. He gave in to his lust for sous-vide machine mentioned above and can now aspire to the modernist cuisine made famous in Barcelona. He has been watching  I-university courses on the science of cooking from Harvard - but there is an essential dimension missing until they can develop an aroma App on iPad.  We both blundered into the 21st century with iPhones and iPads this year. Ron was the first to venture forth, just before he went to Alberta in the spring, and dragged me kicking and screaming after him. It’s rather nice to have someone else in the house to whom I can now turn for techie issues. It used to be the other way around. These are handy devices but I can say with certainty, that they have not made us better or happier people. I think it probably took me less time to compose Annual Foolishness back when I did it with ancient Underwood and white-out. Now that it can make it look “professional”,  I’ve become obsessive-compulsive, and trying to get it to look right in Blogger requires medication. For those of you who don’t waste hours on Facebook, I have prepared a little gazette of the postings that seemed to receive the most comments and “likes” which I put on the Blog, too.

Dad, Nov 11, 2013

Dad turned 92 this year, and is doing very well - he’s probably healthier than me. He finally gave in to pressure from his doctor, and us, to get a walker, and we picked out a shiny, red one. He is now able to get downtown to the Seniors’ Centre and the Legion twice as fast, and probably more safely than he did before. I think he is more visible to cars, too.  We’ve been having an epidemic of cars hitting pedestrians in Halifax, and he doesn’t always look.  Nov 11 is a big day for Dad.  As one of the few WW2 veterans who can still make it up to the cenotaph, he is frequently called upon to lay wreathes. and this year he placed two, one on behalf of the provincial government and one on behalf of the Legion, in which he was active for many years. This year he got “Tweeted’ and his photo ended up on the CBC Remembrance day blog. If you visit the blog, you will find him about halfway down the page, just 4 photos below Rob Ford!!  CBC's National Remembrance Day Photo blog

Father Christmas was a gift
 from David many years ago

It is time to stop ranting now and wish you some quiet time over the season, and most of all, peace and freedom from all the noise. Here is dear old Father Christmas, sent to us by David many years ago. He is the first decoration to go up each year.  Behind him on the tiny tree is a Danish paper-cut sent last year by our friend, Doreen, in Corner Brook.  He and we wish you a Happy New Year in 2014.

The Best of My Facebook Page 2013

These are the ones that got lotsa likes and comments: Cats and foolishness get the most. Few ever like the political rants, but ya gotta do it, so there is one.

Ron with Michael Pollan
 and Cabbage

Dec 4, 2013
Ron appeared at the top of the stairs thus, and asked me if he looked like a man seeking a religious experience. With "Bible" (Michael Pollan's "Cooked") in hand, he strode boldly forth into the kitchen to essay sauerkraut. "Why?" one might ask. We live in a province where good sauerkraut is readily available due to the perseverance of our German ancestors. Not good enough for Ron. He is truly, madly and deeply immersed in the hands-on study of bacterial life and useful rot. To date, the 30-hour 100% whole wheat and rye sourdough bread was a "superior comestible". I bet it will be cheese next. Blessed are the Cheesemakers.

Nov 29, 2013
As Ron sat in the day surgery waiting room at the hospital VERY early today, to face one of those unpleasant little procedures to which men of his age, and medical history, are often subjected, he read the New Yorker on his Iphone. When the nurse came to fetch him, he hit the wrong button. The phone did not close but burst forth quite audibly “What brings me here?” Emerging from the still-open New Yorker app was the voice of poet Gerald Stern reading his poem of that title in this week’s issue. The nurse remained stony-faced, but laughter spread down the row of waiting patients, some clad in johnny coats. How grateful are we, who reside in the laughing belly of the universe, for the little cosmic jokes that lighten us all on our hysterical descent into decrepitude.

Nov 15, 2013
These came from one of Dad's bridge-playing friends. I really like both of them. As one of the few WW2 veterans who can still make it up to the cenotaph, Dad is frequently called upon to lay wreathes. 

Elinor at the Ghostly
 Gala Storytelling Event

Nov 5, 2013
It's Giller Prize Day in Canada (Big literary prize) . Here is a little 6 degrees of separation story. In 1983, on my "Dance your way down the Nile" trip,  Doris Giller - yes, that very Doris Giller, in whose honour the prize was created,  a seasoned traveller, dragged a few of us to a perfumerie in the Khan El Khalili bazaar in Cairo, when we supposed to be content just sitting around the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn. It was an adventure. Ask me some day. Doris had come on the trip with a dancing friend. She was bold and funny, and book editor at the Montreal Gazette, so we had lots to talk about. We got lost in the City of the Dead together.  She found a great taxi driver who took us all kinds of places we would never have seen otherwise.  Back home, she picked me up for dinner in Montreal in a little red sports car, and told me to find myself a rich man instead mucking around with losers.  Me - I found a winner, don't you think? Thank you, Doris. Here I am with kohl eyes, blackened from the very pot I bought in the Khan that day. Is it toxic lead sulphide or soot and resin? Who knows? I use it only on very spooky occasions - like our Ghostly Gala at Cole Harbour Farm last week. Thank you Jill Hogg for the photo. It is cropped from a group photo which you can find on the Storytellers Circle of Halifax FB page.   Alas, poor Doris - she was a woman of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, and gone too young.

Nov 1, 2013
You know you have a First World Cat when you spend more on her supplements than your own. This is Clara, known to us as Mummy. At least we get a nice photo from it. Our vet is a photographer, too. I expect we are on his FB page too.

Oct 31, 2013 - Yeah, I know. Grumpy Stuff - but it got published in the Chronicle Herald's Letter section. They don't publish everything I send.

Ah the Senate Scandal - brought to us by a politician who claimed to hate corruption and appointed Senates. Have I got it figured out right? As soon as we get elected, we cut taxpayers' contributions to political parties - a small amount based on # of popular votes. Then we hold our noses and appoint some friends to the disdained body and send them off to fund-raise for our own party - courtesy of the taxpayers. When our minions embarrass us by getting caught, we try to buy them off in secret, then turn on them and pretend we had nothing to do with it, and try to force the Senate to fire them, because, of course, we know nothing. and are arms length from it all. Rather smelly armpits! This circus is taking far too much of our energy and distraction from Real Issues - like silencing scientists and dissent and selling us out to foreign interests. It's interesting to observe that it doesn't take absolute power to corrupt absolutely. A mere taste will suffice.

Oct 14, 2013

Marilyn Sveen's portrait of David

Thanksgiving. We are grateful to have had David Richards in our lives. It made life more complex but somehow sweeter. We miss him and we thank everyone who extended condolances to us. This is a watercolour painted by his friend Marilyn Sveen. We have it framed now at our house. It is a picture that makes you smile whenever you look at it.

Aug 10, 2013

David at Indefinite Arts

This is a photo of Ron's brother, David, a few years back, working at In-Definite Arts, a wonderful programme in Calgary, that has artists working with people with a variety of physical and mental disabilities. David produced some amusing, and sometimes beautiful, objects. It looks like he is painting the dinosaur from the Flintstones which we have at our house. His favourite colours were green and purple. That's what I wore to the funeral. Our graveside service yesterday was all we could have hoped for. A dear friend, the mother of David's long-time roommate, who died in Feb read "Green Eggs and Ham" - David's all-time favourite, and it cheered us all. His old worn-out copy went into the niche with him. Ron told David's story and I sang All through the Night. Many people offered memories and stories both during the service and at the reception. Thank you to everyone who sent condolances.

Mar 13, 2013 
Thank you Tom Cochrane for this fantastic silhouette photo of Ron and me waltzing on Sunday night at The March Hare in Corner Brook - evidence that Sherman Downey can make the lame dance! - with enough wine and Tylenol.

Feb 9, 2013
Sam the Shredder's latest collage project. Yes, whenever Sam the Tabby wants to go out, he shreds paper.  Remember this is the cat who ate Alberta*. Here is his latest effort. I must say that his choice of subject matter displays a kind of perverse intelligence rarely seen in his species. The last thing he shredded was Adam Gopnik's article about Elaine Pagels new book on Revelations which Ron is reading currently.

* I left an atlas open to Albert on the sofa, and came back to discover the entire page had been chewed. This is a Newfoundland cat! 

Sam the Tabby's Collage Art

Annual Foolishness - December 2012

I thought I had just written an Annual Foolishness! but that was last year, and , and here it is mid-December again! and I am late as usual .  I haven’t even got around to mailing many of last year’s Christmas cards. Now I have to figure out which labels I need to print and which labels are already sitting on envelopes in the box downstairs. We will see how far I get with the project this year. It’s a random affair.  Please do not feel slighted if you did not receive one last year. It was/is chaos, not intention. I seem to be losing the clutter battle in our much reduced square footage.  I noted in last year’s letter that we were still working on re-establishing contact with friends and family in NS, and a year later, we still  are. I also thought at the time, that we should be cautious about any rejoicing over the Arab Spring in Egypt, and, here we are, round about where I thought we might  be. The first year history course at Potsdam State Teachers’ College in upstate New York was one of the most astonishing courses I ever took - definitely not High School history. The text was Crane Brinton’s “Anatomy of Revolution”  Wikipedia has an article summarizing what I spent a term absorbing. It should be required reading. I have also finished my square to contribute to Storytellers of Canada annual fund-raising quilt, which brings both angst and delay into my Christmas preparation, but a great feeling of accomplishement. I don't make "things" much anymore.  You can check out the fruits of our collective labour  our website’s quilt pages: http://www.storytellers-conteurs.ca/quilt.html.  Creating these pages is one of my labours of love, and I even won the quilt back in 2005.

A small sampling of visitors:   Most recently, Celia Lottridge from Toronto, a storytelling friend, and fascinating person to have at your table. I insisted she tell Ron and Dad about her ancestors who had been Christian missionaries in Persia before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and were caught up in the maelstrom of World War I.  Her book for younger readers, and us too,  Home is Beyond the Mountains, is based on her aunt’s experience with the orphans who fled and were trying to return home. 

 











Ottawa friends Ian and Sue McMaster popped in for lunch in the summer, followed by my friend of longest standing: Marilyn Oliver and her mother Mary (with us in the photo above), who is  a friend of Mum and Dad’s from our days in  Bathurst. Judy May came from Corner Brook to see a new musical at Neptune Theatre, based upon the diaries of Adele Hugo, daughter of Victor, who went mad after an infatuation with a fortune- hunting English soldier. She followed him to Halifax, then Barbados. We dragged Dad along with us. Over dinner,  Judy filled us in on the plot; she had assisted with the translations  while a graduate student, and even visited the house on the Guernsey where the Hugos lived in exile. The show starred Marty Burt who grew up in Corner Brook. 

Julia Rank, who was one of our “best women”  visited at Thanksgiving. We all went to see Sweeney Todd at Neptune, and got together with mutual friends Cliff LeJeune (who was the villain in Sweeney Todd) and Emund McLean - all in photo.

 











Dad is a pretty good sport about these adventures. “Want to come with us to Cabaret, Dad?”
“What’s it about?”  “Well, it’s a musical about the Nazi takeover.”
“Want to come with us to see Sweeney Todd?” “What’s that about?”
“Well, it’s a musical about a serial killer.” “Sure”, he usually says. “Why not?”

We did exhaust his patience by dragging him to a screening of “Nosferatu” with live, and cleverly  selected, organ music by well-known local organist, Shawn Whynot.  We loved it;  Dad declared a “complete waste of time”,  and the pews "unbearable". He HAS enjoyed shows at the Carleton Grill where we have dined and heard the likes of The Once, the Rhapsody Quintette and James Hill & Ann Janelle. My cousin Jane and I went there to hear Laura Smith and had a great evening.  I have endured many  pain-inflicting pews this year, particularly the  barely 12" wide ones at St. Mary’s Basilica for a gorgeous concert by the Walter Kemp singers. Walter is the director of Opera Nova Scotia. ONS  provides “prelude talks” before the Met Opera’s  live in HD broadcast in the Empire Cinemas in Nova Scotia. Walter writes them, and volunteers deliver them across the province. I am the Dartmouth volunteer. I am learning so much. I even wrote a fan e-mail to Jay Hunter Morris, the ebullient Texan tenor who took  over the role of Siegfried with two weeks notice, and nailed it brilliantly. And he answered! attaching a photo of himself  relaxing at home afterwards bathing his little 3 year boy, Cooper Jack! I read his reply at the broadcast, and then we decided to see Siegfried and Giulio Cesare live!  in New York at the Met in April. 

It feels like I just started reading  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire again (3rd attempt)  but I see that it was almost a year ago; I’m still working at it. The trouble is whenever I tackle this book, I always get distracted and digress to other books about the Roman Empire,  more balanced  and more up-to-date in research, but seldom as entertaining or full of such quotable quotes. Consider: The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. Imagine that! Why  am I reading about the Roman Empire? Well, you might ask - or not!   It’s a question I ask myself almost daily. I wasn’t born this  way. Last year I started reading as much as I could about the Icelandic sagas for a project in Alberta in the spring.  Karen, a storytelling friend of mine in Calgary, descended from the good Icelandic settlers of Markerville, a tiny farming community near Red Deer, Alberta, issued a challenge to anyone interested, to learn the Saga of Grettir the Strong to tell aloud over the course of a full day at the Markerville community centre with suitable pauses for food, drink, dance and chat. Since Ron and I go to Calgary once a year, and the timing doesn’t really matter, I was able to accept this challenge with great enthusiasm. And thus we arrived on a bitter night to bunk down at the Baha’i Center at  Sylvan Lake on May 4. The ice was still being blown up and down the lake in the gentle spring breezes - so authentic. It was a grand adventure. Twelve tellers -  lots of vinatarta.

This  pursuit of  Icelandic saga took a veer south after we saw the Met Opera broadcast of Wagner’s Ring cycle. I wanted to know more about Brunhild and Siegfried and that crowd. Wagner, as you may know, delved into the Icelandic sagas for source material for his ring cycle, as did J.R.R. Tolkien for his Lord of the Rings. I decided to read the German version, the Nibelungenlied  which has nothing to do with The Ride of the  Valkyrie,  Rhinemaidens, Norse Gods,  or a divine  origin for the dragon-slayer hero, Siegfried.  Brunhild, if she existed,  is not the daughter of  Wotan, but a warrior Queen of Iceland, which is odd, since 5th  century Iceland wasn’t inhabited by anyone we know. That’s when these events were supposed to have taken place. She was not enchanted by Wotan in a ring of fire on top of a mountain, nor did she ride onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre on a magic horse. There were a few bits of standard magic left : love potion, helmet of invisibility,  magic dragon’s blood, ring of power. It is not written whether Brunhild was fat, or sang, but she did engage in a serious  hissy fit with Siegfried’s wife  Kriemhild (Gudrun in the opera) which led to the murder of Siegfried by Kriemhild’s brothers, the Kings of Burgundy. Both ladies were Christians but they were the WRONG kind - clearly. There were lots of the wrong kinds of Christians running around in those days. I’m reading about them now.  Kriemhild decided to avenge Siegfried’s death by marrying Attila the Hun - like you would -  to try  to enlist him and Dietrich of Bern to kill her brothers.  Lovely people. Almost everyone dies. There does seem to have been a war in which a Hunnic-Roman alliance clobbered the Burgundians (or Ostrogoths) around 436. There are rumours Attila married an Ostrogothic princess named Ildico, but he is said to have died on his wedding night, so that wouldn’t have left the 12 years that it took for Kriemhild to exact her revenge on her brothers.  Dietrich of Bern is actually Theodoric  the Ostrogothic king of  Italy 493 to 526 CE - a total anachronism.  There  may have been a Visigothic noblewoman named Brunhilde, but she lived  in the following century, too - after Attila  and Kriemhild.. The Nibelungenlied wasn’t written down until the 12th century, so total recall of the facts was probably about as true as the stories  about King Arthur and his Knights, told by the 12th-century bards, or the feats of the Trojan war as sung by Homer.  I am so lucky that I am married to a man who is not bothered by these strange pursuits. He once even crawled out of bed and headed for the computer when I gasped in exasperation from the other side of the bed, “Who the heck is Budli?”  It’s complicated. He might  have been the father or brother of Attila, or perhaps the father of Brunhilde - depending. My confusion is not remarkable. I love pursuing these strange, and often violent, disjointed stories that come kaleidoscoping through the ages in strange, brilliant and colourful snippets. I cannot say why. Is it ancestors whispering?  According to the Mormons, I'm descended from the famous Viking Ragnar "Hairy-Breeks." Who can trust any of that stuff?  I'm also descended from Mrs. Odin? and Ethelred the Unready? There are many sides to every blanket - and lots of typos. It's fun.

Ron and I  both took a course on Virgil’s Aeneid this fall at SCANS (The seniors college class network - good courses, but no exams or papers to write) taught by our friend Michael Parker, who used to teach with Ron at Grenfell in Corner Brook,. There was no total recall involved there at all. It was ALL  made up, total propaganda, sucking up to an Emperor, who had confiscated his farm!  Talk about poetic whoredom. So this is what I’m doing with my retirement, besides running the website for Storytellers of Canada, and being their secretary, which has turned out to be more than I can chew, because I simply do not grok Microsoft Word, in which I must compose the minutes. I’m a WordPerfect girl (in spite of its habit of  crashing). I am not a total luddite, but I do not tweet and Word irritates me no end. Separately, Ron also took a course at SCANS on Japanese history and I did one on Homer, also taught by Michael. Ron continues to dance with the Thistle Dancers, and has discovered, as with all performing arts, you can get some weird gigs.  How about being the warm-up act for a Mr. Bean imitator at The Third Annual British Motoring Festival held on the beautiful grounds King’s-Edgehill private school in Windsor, NS on  a hot day in July, when you’re dancing on lumpy grass in a wool kilt. I minds the time I was the front end of a cow in a gin joint in San Francisco. Ask me sometime. He was supposed to be dancing at the Victorian Christmas Festival at the Citadel a few  weeks back, but wrenched his back moving a bag of recycling. Whoever thinks recycling is not an extreme sport has not lived in Halifax.

I am officially a senior now so it is not surprising to find myself trying to clean glasses with sunscreen or applying drops of vitamin D to my eyeballs instead of Visine, and vice versa. None of this caused serious harm, although it did take a fair amount of dishwashing liquid to get the glasses clean. And really, when I think about it, it has been over 20 years since I last tried to brush my teeth with Preparation H, so there are signs of hope. I just learned that my tiny American Social Security check is about to be increased by 1.7%  as concession to the cost of living. And so my American friends, as you face the economic cliff, you can blame this foreigner for draining off  $3.34 more from the American exchequer each month. It was  a nice surprise to discover that I was actually going to get something for the 10+ years I paid into the US system. It made up for what I lost on my Canada pension and old age security for having been out of the country “so long.”  After much negotiation, I have managed to score 34/40th  of the Canadian Old Age Supplement, which about covers the portion of my civil service pension clawed back by the government of Newfoundland when I turned 65. I’m not complaining. I lived long enough to collect a modest pension, and when I look at what’s happening to pension plans today, I know I was born under the very lucky star, and feel sad for everyone trying to get settled in anyway in the 21st century, with all the outsourcing to horrible factories in Bangledesh and union busting and civil servant bashing  in full flower. The treatment of some  pulp and paper workers in NS has been a sad story. Dad is savage about  what has happened to Evironment Canada. The “true north strong and free” has also decided to fund only scientific research that is directly related to achieving "economic ends". I will try to say no more about the ravages being heaped upon my country - lest you shred me.

In February, my excellent physiotherapist, who had set  me on the path of CFQ Xi Gong practice,  ordered me to the naturopath. With  the help of  Dr. Craig H., I took  on the elimination diet – no gluten, no night shades, no sugar, no caffeine!,  no dairy,  no  etc. etc. diet, supplemented with super turmeric tablets and super probiotics.  After three weeks, all gastric disorders and a substantial amount of pain had subsided  and I was feeling SO much better I stayed on it for quite a few weeks more. Another discovery was that Magnesium and CoQ10 enzyme reduce the horrid side effects of statins. I cut back on some meds, shed a few pounds, which have stayed off,  and added most things back in moderation,  and occasionally indulge in Ron’s gnocchi, but wheat plays a much smaller role  in my life, and Dad has developed a fondness for gnocchi, which he hadn't encountered before. Life’s  a little more complicated - and the guilt!  “Oh father forgive me for I have eaten gluten! - or was it the cucumber? Mea culpa. Mea culpa! I have not done my Xi Gong practice today. ”  One of the downsides, or upsides, perhaps, of living in a country with publicly-funded medical care, is that if you want to be a good citizen,  you really ought to take responsibility for your own health, because we all pay when we don’t. One thing I noticed when I tried to cut back on the “happy” pills -  a low dose of Celexa prescribed by my perceptive doctor in Corner Brook, to help deal with chronic pain:  I wrote  more rants to the government. You don’t suppose “happy pills” are a conspiracy to shut us up - like Orwell’s soma.


 
















Sam the tabby continues to consume liberal, east-coast writings: Adam Gopnick's New Yorker article on the Spanish Inquistion, and an article on capitalist greed in Harper's. Thank goodness we now have back up on-line to finish reading the articles he has digested before we can. Remember : this is the cat that ate Alberta, when I inadvertantly left my new atlas open on the sofa.  The caption on the New Yorker  cartoon at the left reads Remember you were an alley cat once and you can be one again. We have just spent an obscene amount of money on our youngest cat, Otis Red, the big orange feral guy who joined on just as we were leaving Newfoundland. There must be a special place in hell reserved for aging DINK’s  who spend that much money on having a cat’s teeth cleaned when there is so much big sorrow in the world. We have lost cats to gum disease.  It is a small sorrow. Old Clara, still ticks a long. I suppose she is about 14 or 15+  and takes  4 expensive pills a day, and a special diet which she detests. Amanda Tickle still tickles. Each cat, on a different formula, prefers the bowls of the others. Felis domestica recapitulates homo sapiens.

Our travels were modest this year. I used flyer points to attend a 12-hour telling of Homer’s Odyssey in Ottawa at the fourth stage of the National Arts Center in June. It was carried off brilliantly by 18 of Canada’s best storytellers. The Greek  ambassador even put in an appearance and stayed for two sets, although it was the evening before the Greek election. He gave a charming little speech. I wrote a review which appeared in our newsletter this fall, but I have just posted it here a couple of days ago.   I saw many friends and family in Ottawa,  too.

Ron and I both went to my storytelling conference in Montréal, where we were housed at College Jean Brébeuf, the alma matter of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It was HOT, but we loved the conference, which was about as bilingual a conference as we have ever attended, although that is where I foolishly volunteered to be secretary. We had an all too brief visit with Ron's brother in Brockville before that. Then I had a short  trip to New York for an intensive weekend storytelling workshop with my inspiration, the storyteller Laura Simms. We were  4 women, Laura, and 2 lovely cats, “camped” in her wonderful loft apartment right near the Strand Bookstore on lower Broadway. I worked on “The Goose Girl” (Brothers Grimm) and  got to visit my two high school  friends, Tamsen (in Ossining) and Bobbi (in Bloomfield).













Bobbi and Ed  took me on a “RiverKeepers Cruise” on the Hackensack River where much has been done to reduce pollution and restore wetland habitation. Sadly, this area took quite a beating in Hurricane Sandy.  Laura wrote me about the silence in Lower Manhattan as she read by the natural light coming in her window  until water, power and phone service returned. Laura has more personal  knowledge of disaster, and runs a small project for children in Haiti which makes me wish I had a more Bill Gates like exchequer from which to assist. 

Speaking of  geese and technology, part of my daily entertainment  is provided by  the 12 geese who live on Sullivan’s pond at the end of our block. Twice a day, they waddle across the busy road to graze on the lawn of our community centre, and bring traffic to a standstill. There is always a straggler. I can't tell if it is always the same one, or who decides when they move. You have to love them.

On the family front, we lost another cousin from Dad’s generation,  Mary Roberta “Bobs” Benjamin, an interesting and lively, and determined  woman, who taught school in the Arctic for her working career, and retired to Nova Scotia, before Alzheimer’s set in. She was lovingly and patiently cared for  by her niece and her niece’s family. Now Dad and cousin Allen in Florida are the last of the 10 cousins from that generation. There was a large Benjamin memorial gathering in West Dublin. Our side is thin, but the descendants of Dad's cousin Fred’s 5 children, are numerous and multiplying as I write. I look forward to their Boxing Day gathering. I am so happy that we made the decision to move in with Dad. I can’t recall when I have felt better about a decision. We also lost, far too soon (57), a vivacious and beautiful friend from Corner Brook, Tina Dolter,  who taken away  by complications of  pneumonia. It was Tina whose portrait project,  “The Sensuality of the Maturing Woman” involved some of us, me included, who had so much fun doing our “calendar girls” project to raise money for the new palliative care unit at the Corner Brook Hospital back in 2001. Tina  was a positive force wherever she went, and is so missed. My portrait (at 55?) hangs in Gitano’s restaurant in Corner Brook, while my Dorian Gray self is still trying  to decide when to stop using  henna. I have now achieved a hair-do that has intimations of Alice in the Dilbert cartoon.

The sight of the end of page 4 footnote on the print version of this foolishness coming up tells me it is time to cease this self-indugent bundle of random musings.  4 pages is the maximum I will inflict on anyone. I  had, and still have, very little new to say about anything. The world is in endless re-runs. At 65, the only  bit of elder wisdom I can offer is this:  Don’t try to reach the second shelf without the footstool. In 2012, we still have the poor "always with us", and must continue the good fight. Did Matthew also know  know about “The  Donald”, whose bullying  ilk, alas, is always with us,  too. I would ask you to join me in a tumbler of Glennfiddich and sing a rousing chorus or two of Bob Dylan’s
    oh ye playboys and playgirls
    ain't a-gonna run my world
against the Donald Trumps of the world.  We have ‘em in Canada, too. Oh Cheers! and Up Yers, Donald.

May the force sustain you and yours through another year and bring us toward more Peace and Joy in 2013.With considerable affectation, I confess, but also with great affection

OTTAWA STORYTELLERS AND 2WOMEN PRODUCTIONS’ CO-PRODUCTION OF THE ODYSSEY

A Review - Elinor Benjamin

National Treasure Jan Andrews with some of the participants

June 16 was Bloomsday, a day when literati gather in pubs around the world to read aloud James Joyce’s "Ulysses", a challenging, literary novel detailing the passage of one day in the life of Dublin resident, Leopold Bloom, in the early 20th century. By coincidence, the Ottawa Storytellers and 2Women Productions chose that day to present the epic of the original Ulysses, or Odysseus, created, most scholars agree, by a Greek poet named Homer. Homer’s Odyssey, written some four centuries after the events described, covers ten years in the life of a Bronze Age Greek hero on his way home from the Trojan War. It is rich in the language of a people steeped in oral literature, a people on the cusp of the written word, a people for whom a day or night spent listening to bards reciting stories aloud in metric poetry was the highest form of recreation. The stories of the one-eyed Cyclops, the witch Circe, who turns men into swine and the Sirens, whose songs lead men to doom, have resonated down the ages, infiltrating comic books, action movies, literature, poetry and popular culture in more ways than we know. At its core, however, it is the story of one man’s long return from a war to chaos in his kingdom. It is a universal tale. War-weary and homesick men and women continue to return from wars to find their "kingdoms" in disarray. Odysseus’s journey home was filled with detours, divine intervention, encounters with friendly strangers and venomous strangers, and a healthy serving of the fabulous, for "wily Odysseus" was, himself, a master tale-spinner. It is also story about hospitality and the abuse of hospitality, a value central to the ancients.

You might be tempted to think that turning off all connections to the modern world to sit in an intimate, darkened room from 10 am to 10:30 pm to listen to people telling a 3200 year-old story would be an painful and esoteric undertaking, but the near-capacity crowd gathered at the National Arts Center’s Fourth Stage in Ottawa were entranced from the opening sentence until the final word. The spirited discussions rising above the Greek music playing during the well-spaced breaks testified to the power of the telling and the tale. People new to the story fell under its spell as quickly as those, like myself, who have loved it for years. The warmly lit stage illuminated an evocative set of crossed spears, bronze helmets, a portion of Greek column, and a swath of red fabric on a rough wood backdrop. Small details in dress enhanced the effect of the set without the distraction of "costume".
Using only the power of imagination and the human voice, fueled by passion, eighteen storytellers brought the Bronze Age to the 21st century audience more vividly and authentically to life than any hitech visual wizardry. Artistic directors Jan Andrews and Jennifer Cayley of 2Women Productions have been working with this material for twenty years. Under their leadership, the eighteen storytellers, each well-known for their own work and varied styles , presented a unified vision of the story. Each teller brought something unique, but stayed true to Homer, bringing his rich language to life and achieving a narrative clarity which I, myself, had not grasped even after many readings over the years.. This could not have been achieved without careful editing (of the newer Rieu prose translation - Penguin) and a collective desire to honour the story above all. In presenting each set, Jan Andrews kept us on time, on the narrative track and full of anticipation for the adventures to come. The Greek ambassador, Eleftherios Aggelopoulos, took time from a busy schedule on the eve of Greek elections, to enjoy several sets and bring greetings. His thoughtful reflections on the universal themes in Homer and the current crisis at home brought both laughter and an acknowledgment of the seeming invariability of the human condition. Jan’s announcement of Greece’s soccer victory against Russia that day was a moment of lightness and certainly in the spirit of the games that preceded some of the feasts in The Odyssey.  I have been listening to storytellers for over 20 years. At festivals and concerts, it is the norm to listen to a variety of shorter stories that have been honed, sharpened and compressed to fit within the time constraints of busy programmes, but I love long stories. For me, the luxury of listening, uninterrupted, to one of the world’s most enduring and resonant stories over the course of a single day was an experience that will be hard to top. My own tiny "odyssey" to hear it was well rewarded. Would Odysseus and his companions have been baffled by the variety of monsters that inhabit modern airports? I am. Canada is blessed to have such a diversity of wonderful storytellers in its capital city. Here they are: Alan Shain, Anne Nagy, Daniel Kletke, Dean Verger, Ellis Lynn Duschenes, Gail Anglin, Jacques Falquet,  Jan Andrews, Jennifer Cayley, Katherine Grier, Kim Kilpatrick, Marie Bilodeau, Marta Singh, Mary Wiggin, Ruth Stewart-Verger, Sherri Yazdani, Tara Hartley and Tom Lips. 

Watch for them. See and hear them whenever you have a chance. The Ottawa Storytellers post their events at http://www.ottawastorytellers.ca/ ; 2Women Productions are at http://www.2wp.ca
Thank you to the sponsoring bodies who supported this beautiful production: The Ontario Arts Council, The City of Ottawa, Heritage Canada and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Thank you to the staff and volunteers who made it all flow so smoothly.