I wanted to tell Camp about my recent experience with my cell phone provider. I’ve been a subscriber to Telus for the past 25 years and I’m not the kind of person who switches banks and utilities at a whim. I’m too lazy and a bit cynical, thinking that they’re all the same but claim to be different then all the others.
Continue readingMuriel and Camp were already at our usual table when Clare and I walked in. This felt like a proper social gathering, instead of the usual lament or as Vicky once pointed out in unflattering terms: a man-bitch session.’
Instead of the usual grumpy peeve of the week we exchanged pleasantries and talked about the weather and Muriel briefly complained about the ongoing tiresome but seemingly necessary protocols on the ferry, the grocery stores and public spaces.
‘No bitching or complaining at this table,’ I said, scoring a point for Camp and I, ‘we only talk about positive and humorous issues, isn’t that right Camp?’
‘I think I’ll start a new calendar,’ Camp said, looking over at Muriel who along with Clare agreed to join us for this one time, for our usual Thirsty Thursday.
‘I’ve already heard it,’ Muriel said, taking a sip from her white wine spritzer.’
‘What calendar?’ Clare asked.
‘Well we have the Muslim Calendar, the Mayan Calendar, the Gregorian Calendar which is the one we use and now I propose the Covid calendar which starts at year 1. BC would be Before Covid, AC After Covid and so on. What do you guys think about that?’
‘I think I need a stronger drink,’ Clare said.
‘The First Nations could also have their own calendar, BC, AC just like us but based on Before Contact or After Contact,’ Muriel said, ‘and cheers, this is fun.’
‘Since we’re a bubble, we don’t have to distance or wear masks, except Camp, who has contact with the public in the store,’ I said.
‘I don’t wear a mask, since I’m always behind the counter, at least six feet away from any customer. Most of them wear a mask but I don’t have an official policy and I keep the doors and windows open. Not quite sure yet how this is going to work in the coming months. Winter is coming and so is Christmas in year 1. Even Santa will have to wear a mask and no bouncing kiddies on his lap.’
‘Ok, you two,’ Muriel said, taking a sip of wine. ‘Get it out before you burst. You must have some thoughts on the latest episode of ‘The White House’.
Both Camp and I answered in stereo. ‘Worst show ever.’
‘A culture of ignorance,’ I said.
‘Hubris, egos and maniacs,’ Camp added.
‘No brains, no class, no respect,’ I said emphatically, emptying my first pint.
‘I’m glad we got that out of the way,’ Clare said, winking at Muriel.
‘Did you guys see any wild life on your road trip,’ Muriel asked, steering the conversation away from swampy and treacherous territory.
‘We saw a marmot, a few mountain goats crossing the highway, lots of birds but no bears, moose or caribou.’
‘You do know the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat?’ Camp asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Black bear scat looks more like some hippy berry or apple crumble and grizzly scat is the one with the bells and whistles in it.’
We all looked at Camp and it was Clare who got it first. ‘Funny,’ she laughed.
Banff was pleasantly accessible and didn’t feel crowded due to the lack of international tourists. A bonus for us visitors, a calamity for the local businesses. It will be a hard winter for many: from shop keepers to students, teachers to restaurateurs. We said farewell to our friends who both are connected to the Banff Centre, the artistic and intellectual heart of the mountain village, which in a normal year would bring in hundreds of artists and students from all over the globe but now sits mute and closed; its staff and students furloughed until past-Covid times it seems.
Continue reading‘How was the trip,’ Camp asked me after I sat down.’
‘I loved being on the road and it made me forget about the madness all around us,’ I said, ‘and we live in a beautiful, diverse part of the world. Just like our license plates say.’
‘Welcome back to reality,’ Camp said. ‘Let me tell you about an article in the New York Times which quoted Charles McKay who wrote ‘Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ in 1841. A rollicking chronicle of how humans go bonkers in crowds, who with wild-eyed passion go crazy for prophecy, fortune telling, magnets or alchemy. Surely the 13M viewers who watched a Trump endorsed video of a doctor who claimed demon sperm and alien DNA as the cause of covid-19 fit right into one of McKay’s ‘Popular Delusions.’
Continue readingWe left Cow Bay (the waterfront district in Prince Rupert named after Jean Nehring, a Swiss guy, who unloaded a herd of cows here in 1908) on a foggy morning and drove east along Highway 16 known as the Yellowhead Highway. Three main arteries connect this wet part of the world to the rest of Canada: The mighty Skeena River, the CNR rail line, originally called the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and the Yellowhead Highway often referred to as the Highway of Tears. The 750km stretch of road between Prince Rupert and Prince George has been the location of many murders and disappearances of First Nations women, beginning in 1970. All three arteries run parallel and we passed by 3 km long trains double-stacked with containers.
Road trips happen to be my favorite pastime. Driving along highways and byways, over passes, along rivers and lakes and through new towns is like a live movie with constant new scenes, impressions and input. Even driving through big cities can be exciting. It is certainly living in the moment. Lucky for me Clare is an excellent navigator and always checks her maps against the TomTom GPS which has been known to send people the wrong way.
(adapted from ‘Savages’ by Don Winslow)
We humans had for a brief time – in cosmic terms – a civilisation on land surrounded by vast oceans and bordered by ice to the north, desert in the middle and ice to the south. This civilisation depended on water, for drinking and for crops to grow. Water is life.
We built houses, roads, highways, hotels, sky scrapers, shopping malls, condo towers, parking lots, airports, schools, stadiums and factories.
We proclaimed the freedom of individuals, invented, bought and drove cars to prove it and built more roads for the cars to drive on so we could go nowhere faster. We invented social structures to govern people and we conquered diseases and multiplied.
We all wanted the same things: cars, fridges, TVs, boats, toys.
We watered our lawns, washed our cars, drank water out of plastic bottles to stay hydrated in a dehydrated land and we put up water parks and big sculpted fountains.
We built temples to our fantasies – film studios, amusement parks, cathedrals, megachurches, football stadiums and we all flocked to them.
We built plains to fly around the globe and boats to cross the lakes and oceans and we poured our waste water into the same water we loved and depended on.
We built weapons to destroy each other and the planet and sent rockets into space.
We reinvented ourselves every day, remade our culture, our beliefs, locked ourselves into gated communities, multi bathroom houses, condo towers and trailer-parks and then we started eating healthy foods, gave up smoking and sun bathing, We had our faces stretched, our skins peeled, our lines removed, our fat sucked, our bodies rebuilt and we defied aging and death and warehoused our old.
We fought each other for land, water and minerals.
We enslaved, segregated and divided each other.
We extracted, modified, harnessed and subjugated.
We made gods of wealth and health
A religion of narcissism
In the end we worshipped only ourselves
In the end, it wasn’t enough
Labour Day has come and gone and we’re into the last stretch of a spectacular summer. Not as many local forest fires as previous years but the west coast is burning up all the way from California to Washington and there is the heat and anger on the streets of America.
‘Did you see the new CDC map that tells us where all the covid-19 cases were in the province?’ I asked Camp after Rosie brought around a couple of pints.
‘Yes, I did. From January until end of July. Doesn’t tell us anything really. It’s better than nothing but I would have liked to see when those cases occurred. It doesn’t mean anything to know that we had 7 cases in 7 months. Were they in April or July?’
‘Why don’t they include that info?’
Continue readingAs we’re nearing the end of summer – already – our daily lives are still ruled by the covid-19 pandemic. Although we know more about it, have better tools for control, testing and tracing, are closer to a vaccine and a treatment than five months ago, we are a long way from eradication or even controlling the virus. Everything has changed: Social behavior, schools, work environments, sports, entertainment, travel, restaurants and we are impacted in every facet of life and across the globe. We wear masks, avoid physical contact like hugs and kisses and make circles around each other. Such were my thoughts as I walked along the shore to our weekly chat over a couple of brews. Not much has changed there. Camp was already seated in our usual corner and lost no time to launch into a tirade featuring our wily and unpredictable neighbour to the south.
Continue readingThis has been the hottest week all summer here on the coast with everybody flocking to the lakes and the sea shore. Except for today. It’s raining non-stop. Water is a good thing for everything living and growing. In the last week alone, we have over 100 forest fires ravaging the province, foremost the 5000 acre Christie Mountain fire in the Okanagan’s Similkameen district near Penticton. It grew over 2500 acres in just one afternoon.
Continue reading‘Hi Camp, how is the summer going at the bookstore?’
It’s been a great so far. People seem to have more time to read and the village is busy, awash with staycationers and locals. And every ferry is packed, I hear.’
It was the first day we had any rain in over a month and since we had a wet June there are no forest fires to speak of. Not like a couple of years ago when we couldn’t even see the mountains for the smoke and smog. Camp was late today which meant he was held up at the store with customers or there were unforeseen circumstances. He never misses our weekly get togethers over a couple of brews.
Rosie, our Irish server, didn’t wait for my order and just brought me a pint of lager. Not quite the clairvoyant server that Vicky is but she was trying. Camp came in a couple of minutes later and Rosie was right behind him with another pint.
There is no place like home, goes the cliché which is certainly true for the Sunshine Coast. We’re very lucky to live here in paradise by the sea. I haven’t been to the city, Vancouver, in over three months and don’t see any reason to go. Life is good here and the sun is shining right now. Summer is finally here and people are out camping, swimming, hiking and biking. But we don’t see any tour buses or Germans driving around in RV’s, no Americans filling up the pubs, no Chinese clusters looking for the washrooms. It’s eerily quiet which suits us locals just fine. How long will this go on? Predictions say at least another year, maybe longer.
I found Camp sitting at our table, separated by a plexi glass barrier from the next table. He was thumbing through the Worldometer which highlighted the dismal US numbers of new covid cases and deaths.
Our corner table was nicely separated by plexiglass and potted plants. I kind of liked the private atmosphere this created.
‘Maybe we should all believe in reincarnation. If we did, then we would be more concerned about the long-term future than we are. I’m thinking about the environment: ocean acidification, temperature increases, garbage; all of that would matter a lot more if we were destined to come back,’ I said to Camp who was quaffing his first pint.
‘What’s bugging you now, he asked.
It’s finally summer here on the Sunshine Coast. Rich man’s weather with no bugs, I like to describe it. But it’s quiet, no tourists, no festivals, no fireworks. In a way it’s kind of nice but it seems like the calm before the storm. Vicky set down two fresh pints and said: ‘Today you two need to focus on the beauty and goodness all around you. No doom and gloom and no Trump.’ We both looked at her speechless. ‘Just kidding,’ she said with a smile.
We raised our glasses and toasted to the beauty and the goodness and then Camp said, running his hand through his unruly shock of grey curls. ‘We have to admit that we’re not going to get out of this pandemic as we thought just a few months ago. Now it seems that the so called second wave is just a continuation of the first wave, trending upwards in lockstep with uncoordinated re-opening policies.’
I walked to the pub along the shore at low tide and thought about what Clare just told me. She is working virtually and is zoomed out. ‘I feel a bit lonely, a bit sad and a bit awkward, maybe even a bit depressed.’
‘It’s called zoom fatigue,’ I said. ‘People cannot function in two dimensions and not everybody is an actor or looks good on camera. Also, people present a persona which is switched on and you cannot get the human connection that face to face meetings and body language’ provide. We are not screen images.’ I told Camp about it and he agreed. ‘I don’t do zoom,’ he said, ‘either come and see me or I’ll wait until this is over. I’m not talking into a computer like I’m doing a commercial of myself. Not gonna happen.’
‘Let’s say that one percent of the North American population – US, Mexico, Canada – has been infected with the Covid-19 virus – many of them unknowingly. That’s about 5 million people, almost double the official number of 3.2 million. That leaves 99 percent of the population untouched but still vulnerable.’
It’s finally summer here on the Sunshine Coast and week 15 of the Covid. There are still no public celebrations and concerts, no parades or marathons, no team sports and no public fundraisers. Club meetings, Yoga and dance classes are on zoom or skype, even family gatherings and weddings are held virtually with the betrothed assembled in front of a screen instead of a crowd. Good thing the pubs are open again and breweries are an essential service. Camp was already at our table at Gramma’s and our masked server just set down our frosty pints as I walked in.
‘How’s your week been?’ Camp asked, pocketing his little screen.
Bruno's point of view 