Camp and I met by the dock and brought our beers and peeves along.
‘Now that the weather is warmer and it’s light until ten o’clock at night it also means that everything is growing in wild profusion: grass, lawns, shrubs, flowers, gardens and noise,’ Camp said.
‘Noise? You mean the birds and frogs?’
‘I woke up this morning and I see a world transformed by Covid-19. If anything could stop a way of life and break the cultural heart of the world then this virus has done a pretty good job. Nothing in my life time has had a similar impact. ‘I doubt that anybody remembers a time when we cannot touch, hug or be close to others,’ I said to Camp, who was lighting his pipe.
The local butcher offered a weekend special for twenty bucks: 1lb of home cured bacon, 4 house-made sausages and 1 dozen backyard eggs.I also bought too much half/half cream because I forgot I already had enough cream for the week. What to do? A quiche that’s what. Here goes:
‘Are we a bubble or a pod?’ I asked Camp as we sat down on his porch for our Thirsty Thursday meeting. It was a nice sunny day and the birds were going crazy.
‘I guess you and I are a pod since we spend a lot of time together, as are Muriel and I and you and Clare. If the four of us get together then we’re a bubble since we amalgamated two pods.’
‘What do you expect from politicians?’ Camp asked shaking his head
‘It’s not wisdom or learnedness, not even fairness or correctness but simple honesty would be a good start. Do they ever admit to being wrong, having made the wrong decision, taken the wrong side, being fooled by a good story?’ I said.
We were sitting on a bench by the sea shore, six feet apart, enjoying the warm spring weather, breaking another silly law: drinking in public. That’s because one of Muriel’s and Camp’s neighbours complained to the town council about us sitting on Camp’s front porch, disrespecting distancing guidelines. I never thought I’d see neighbours denouncing neighbours, not for hiding illegal aliens, but for acting normal. Clare put it bluntly: ‘This virus outbreak will bring out the worst in people and the best. People will rally to help and support each other or rat each other out.’
‘This will turn into a carnival’, Campbell or simply Camp to all who know him, prophesized.
‘And how is that,’ I asked, not sure if he meant a celebratory or a destructive kind of event. He was about to let me into his fantasy world.
I called Camp on his phone. A rare event since I usually see him at the store, the pub and lately at each other’s house. ‘Apparently, we need to consider all of us as asymptomatic,’ I said, ‘meaning we’re all potential carriers of covid-19 and as such need to keep our distance. Should we meet halfway at Armours Beach and bring our own bottles and sit six feet apart?’ I asked.
Camp dropped over for our weekly debrief over a couple of beers. It was my turn to host and l stocked up on some Coronas since I heard that the brand was hurting. Clare let him in but instead of hug gave him a reserved wave from 6ft away. It’s the new intimacy. How will we ever get past this distancing is anybody’s guess. Fact is I don’t like it, coming from a culture where three cheek kisses are customary greetings. We sat down in my upstairs office which has a view of the coastal mountains, Keats and Gambier island but it’s not the same as being in our pub right on the harbour.
No weddings, no funerals, no parties, no team sports, no get togethers, no bars, no pubs, no restaurants, no concerts, no businesses, no conferences
No Olympics
No libraries, no plays, no cinemas, no theatre
No schools, no child care centres, no kindergartens, no universities, no classes, no recreation centres, no swimming pools, no hiking and biking tours, no travel, no socializing, no book clubs, no bridge clubs, no yoga classes
No hotels, no trains, no buses, no hitch hiking, no planes, no ferries, no cruise ships,
No government sessions, no elections
No hairdressers, no beauty parlours, no dentists, no massage therapy, no eye exams, no elective surgeries, no gyms, no alcoholics anonymous meetings
No protests, no marches, no barricades
No courts, no churches, no synagogues, no mosques, no temples, no gatherings
No hugs, no kisses, no handshakes, no pats on the back,
No work
No fun
No money
No life as we knew it
Only hospitals, health workers, food suppliers, grocery stores, pharmacies, police stations, gas stations and fire-halls
All working from home:
politicians, bankers, accountants, secretaries, teachers, doctors, etc.
Only isolation, virtual communication and emoji emotions
Only social networks dependent on internet connections
We still have wars, bombings, hunger, sickness, disease, misery, refugees
We hope, always hope for the future, the children, the world
We fear the unknown, dying alone, losing a loved one, the loss of freedom, tomorrow
We have more time to:
read, think, write, talk, walk, watch movies, cook, eat, drink, sleep, play and listen to music, paint, exercise, spend with the children, the parents, the flowers
Make love
reach out, reconnect, remember
and plan for a fantastic future
I
want to hide, climb a tree, run away, call someone, stand still, play
close my eyes, my ears, my brain, my mouth
understand, help, fight, fix
laugh and live
I walked to Muriel’s house where Camp lives now and didn’t meet anybody, even though it’s not an isolated road. It felt kind of eerie, as if the town was depopulated. Camp answered the door and led me downstairs into his den which was strewn with books, maps, a wooden desk with a laptop and several more books on it. A busy place by all accounts.
There was a knock on the door and then Camp stepped in without waiting, being practically one of the family. It’s Saturday, not Thursday. We sat upstairs and I fetched us a couple of cold ones. ‘No draught I’m afraid,’ I said but you have a choice here. Once we had our beers we sat down, rather than stand around the kitchen, leaning on the fridge and the sink, as people are apt to do.
New World
‘Last week I debated if I should close my store and join the social distancing movement,’ Camp said when he sat down at our table which was the only one occupied in the whole pub. ‘This might help to slow down the crown virus a fraction but it definitely would be the death knell for the already non-profit book store. So, I decided to keep it open, wipe the door handle every time somebody comes in and out, wear surgical gloves for the money which is practically non-existent, don’t breathe on people and keep an upbeat atmosphere by playing funky music. No blues, no classical but reggae and jazz like Charley Parker, Miles Davis and such. If nothing else it keeps me in a good mood.
In the last month alone, the world has gone topsy-turvy and everybody is running for the exits it seems, grabbing toilet paper and useless face masks on the way out. Camp and I are looking at all the hysteria and financial market convulsions from our vantage point at Gramma’s Pub, feeling a bit removed from it all since Gibsons is virtually an island, away from the hub-bub of the big city and the rest of the world. In order to not get caught in the maelstrom of panic I decided to propose a game to my friend Campbell, Camp to all and sundry around here.
‘The weather is better but that’s about it for good news,’ I said as I sat down opposite Campbell or Camp, as my drinking buddy is known. He was busily pawing his smart phone – against our rules – but he seemed intense and it was obviously important to him.
‘How would you have handled the standoff between Trudeau, the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suet’wen nation, northeast of Prince George, and the solidarity protesters in the Mowhawk territory in Ontario who have been blocking the rail line there,’ I asked Camp after Vicky, our dependable waitress set down two pints in front of us.
‘It’s a tough one,’ Camp said.
Here is my (unauthorized) translation of a review in German from my Swiss newspaper about a new book by Ruud Koopman, a Dutch Sociology professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. ‘Das verfallene Haus des Islam’ – ‘The decaying House of Islam: the religious origins of the lack of freedom, violence and stagnation’.
‘Here is a fact,’ Camp stated after we made ourselves comfortable on our perch on the glassed-in veranda at Gramma’s Pub. ‘After Trump’s first term in office a quarter of all federal judges, including two supreme court judges, will have been appointed by him, changing the judiciary of the USA for a long time to come.’
‘And now Trump has declared himself the top cop in the land as well as judge and jury. As of today, Trump has pardoned twenty-five convicted criminals, some of them pals of his, undoing years of prosecution and legal work,’ Camp said.
‘Let’s switch to the other hot topic of the day,’ I said.
Life is a beach goes the saying except around here life has been a puddle with a few rays of sunshine to brighten up the dreary, soggy days. Lucky are those who can escape to sunnier climes and I envy people who aren’t bothered by the wet winters in the pacific Northwest. I grew up with real winters, white wonderland, blue skies, hot coco and skis instead of gumboots.
I lumbered into Grammas Pub, looking for Camp who was already seated at our usual table and sat down with an exasperated sigh.
‘If it’s not raining, it’s about to,’ my friend Campbell said – Camp to everybody in town – with a dispirited sigh as he plunked himself in the opposite chair at our weekly watering hole by the sea.
The good news is that spring is only a couple of months away,’ I said lamely. Just then Vicky, the only ray of sunshine, put down a couple of pints of the golden liquid. ‘Cheers’, I said, raising my glass, it’s sunny somewhere in this world.’
Bruno's point of view 