The Distant Past and the Up-coming Future

The mind is a strange and wonderful entity (how else ought I describe it?) Sitting quietly or engaged in some active pursuit, one can suddenly venture internally into a space occupied years earlier under vastly different circumstances. This morning while enjoying my breakfast cereal, I found myself remembering the first job that I held. It was the summer I would turn 13. I had just graduated from grade eight and would be launched into the biggies that fall at the local Brockville Collegiate Institute and Vocational School --- BCIVS as it was colloquially known. A lady down the street from our house on James St W hired me for the rich sum of a dollar a day to help her each morning, 8-1PM to assist with household duties and the care and feeding of her three children under the age of five. This was a great deal of money for me as my needs were small – a lot of candy could be purchased for $5 in a week! I began eagerly, arriving promptly at her house, watching over the munchkins at their feed, washing the breakfast dishes, making the beds, dusting the furniture, vacuuming the rugs, taking the kids outside to play, supervising lunch, and finally, washing the lunch dishes. For the first week I was all diligence and enthusiasm and the lady gave an excellent report to my surprised mother. By the second week the novelty had begun to wear off though and I found myself less keen to be the helpful bunny. When I went upstairs to tidy up I would take time to peruse my employer’s stack of magazines. The gig had become boring and tedious, and the five bucks an insufficient inducement to roll me out of my summertime bed for slave labour down the block. Besides by then I was taking a few babysitting jobs that my sister Linda had been too socially active to accept. It was considerably easier to sit in someone’s living room reading my books, periodically raiding their frig or cupboards, and being paid 25 cents/hour while their children slept. Yes! My dream job.

It wasn’t as though I had been brought up to be a household slavey. I think that we fixed up our beds in the morning and washed the dishes after supper. Otherwise, my mother, until we moved to Ottawa a year later, had always stayed at home and so kept all other chores in her domain. She managed it in her own way, I’m sure seeing clearly how much easier was her lot as a housewife than had been that of her mother, Alberta Stewart Craig, the domestic centre of an eight children farmhouse, in pre-electricity, pre-inside plumbing Lanark County. Mom hadn’t been brought up to closely attend to the domestic herself. She had two sisters older than herself, Alma by ten years, and Leola by four. These gals both left school after the usual (for the time) grade eight, in order to assist their mother. The three younger children: Mom, Ethel (Chick), and Milton (Bob) were the little kids whom I think mostly had a chance to play and later to go on to high school. Mom boarded throughout those five years at the Catholic girl’s school in nearby Calabogie. She loved to read and did well as a student.

Once we were in Ottawa she got a job in the credit department of Simpson-Sears. In the early 1950s it was considered shameful for a man’s wife to have to work. Ever conscious of maintaining social proprieties, my mother explained to their mostly better-heeled friends that she simply wanted another challenge to shoulder. They politely accepted her version though probably had some awareness that my father’s work in a small company didn’t bring home enough to feed their middle class existence. The truth is though that the job was good for mom, even though juggling the roles of worker, mother, and domestic, as well as honouring what she considered her “social obligations,” put her under considerable stress (tell me about it, you all scream!) She worked hard at her job, was professional, and earned respect as well as the position of assistant manager. A woman went no higher in those days.

Both of my parents worked hard at their jobs and at keeping our home together. They had come of age during the Depression and though not suffering directly from the severity that it inflicted on some, they imbibed the values, work habits, and concerns of their parents and their generation. While I lived with them my parents occasionally gave vent to their opinion that I was extremely lazy – lazy as sin, my father would say with some exasperation – usually in reference to my reluctance to work around the house. My mother found my slack school habits trying as I limped ingloriously from grade to grade. I must acknowledge that I do believe myself to be a lazy person, not at all as keen as many of my friends on various levels. I don’t especially feel any shame or self-condemnation about that fact; it’s just something that I’m aware of. I said something about this to my daughter, Elizabeth recently, and she said something really fine to me: Mom, she said, you’re not lazy. You just like to choose the places where you put your energy. If something doesn’t interest you, you just don’t give it a lot of focus. What a smarty-pants and what a lovely daughter!

Well, all this is to show how my mind wanders about in the early hours of a Vallarta morning. Tomorrow we embark for Mexico City where we will enjoy for five nights and days its splendours. I see it almost as the kind of air lock that one enters on one’s way in or out of a submarine or a space ship. It’s my air lock, my transition space between Vallarta and Toronto. I plan just to BE there, to walk around and check out some of the areas that I know from my five or six previous visits, and to cogitate and meditate further on the great past, present, and possible futures that I shall experience.

The Top and the Bottom of the Mind

I have fully entered into a time of transition. Yesterday I began a list of things that I need to do immediately to tie up loose ends here in Puerto Vallarta and to get ready for returning to Toronto. Making a list is my attempt to keep from overlooking particular bits and pieces any of which if left unattended will cause some form of havoc in the time to come. It’s a practice I’ve developed in the past few years since discovering that I can no longer easily hold a multitude of disparate items in my brain without some just slip, sliding away. An example: after off-loading some books at the library on Monday I headed for the Mega – a superstore some distance from our condo. My shopping completed without a list, I arrived home realizing that the salad dressing that I had particularly planned to buy there had been forgotten. OK, I know some of you recognize this behaviour. Annoying but not devastating. But some of the pieces yet to be cared for could lead to actual trouble if not dealt with. Hence the list.

Yesterday was a full day (people in Toronto who lead truly busy lives with find my little round of activities laughable). But, here are some of the things that happened and that I accomplished: the de rigour walk on the malecon; swim, shower; a Skype session; an attempt to meet with the condo administrator who apparently is only available in the afternoons, so please check in later; a talk with Luis, the real estate fellow with an office in the lobby to discuss his handling some rentals of our condo unit when we are not here; lunch on the beach with Billy, Catherine’s former boy friend from Winnipeg who came by bus from Sayulita where he is vacationing for a month; finding a moving company on the internet and contracting with them for our move on March 15; finding a place to stay in Istanbul before and after our cruise on the Black Sea in October; contacting our tenant in Orillia about the new, larger water heater that is to be installed there; having a Skype chat with Catherine who was home sick with a cold, making plans with her to get together soon after we return; writing to the lawyer who is facilitating our purchase of unit 804 about paying him to set up the needed documents; answering various emails sent from the lady we are buying the unit from about issues like the telephone, tenants she has had, having availability to go into the unit again before we depart to leave some things here and to take some other photos to be used to advertise it when we are not resident; a brief nap (crucial); drinks (water for me, thank you) with Jean and Joe, neighbours on the 9^th floor who are from Kamloops – really pleasant and welcoming people who have owned a place here for about 15 years; supper/snack, followed by a walk to Roberto’s to see if the New York Times had arrived – it hadn’t; then a walk over to Santander bank’s ATM for a fresh infusion of pesos, a look at some t-shirts on the malecon, and home; some reading, and to bed.

The above describes an unusually busy day here, symptomatic of the fact that in three days we leave for Mexico City and five days after that for Toronto and nine days after that move house. So many things and people crowd into the brain, leaving little option but to put them to paper least they be overlooked in the rush. Today I will try again to see the administrator to find out about arrangements to pay our monthly fees and other bills associated with the unit, all of which go to the administration office and so can be handled with one lump payment. I also plan to open a bank account at a new place just down the street that apparently has a direct connection with a New York bank. Transferring money from Canada and the USA to Mexico is not always an easy affair, so we are trying to find the most expedition method possible.

Though dealing with so many practical issues, I still make time for reading. Elizabeth asked me a couple of weeks ago if our September trip through Eastern Europe and visits to various camps and museums associated with the Holocaust had satisfied or settled some interest in me about this period of our history. She asked because I have not written more about the Holocaust since we returned home. It became clear to me after a few weeks back in Toronto that I needed some space from all that we had seen and experienced because of the powerful impact that it had on me personally. But my connection with or “interest” in the Holocaust has been a part of my inner life for decades and will always be one of my deepest references when thinking of what we are about as human beings. While here I have read a number of books about that period of our history. 

Currently I am reading A Lucky Child, Thomas Buergenthal’s 2002 memoir of his life as a child in a Polish ghetto, his transportation to Auschwitz with his parents at the age of ten, separation from them, surviving Auschwitz, the winter 1945 death march, transportation by open railway car to Sachenhausen camp near Berlin, and finally, liberation by Polish soldiers. His mother had been told when he was very young that he was a lucky child – a statement fully borne out in the series of circumstances where by both luck and his wits he managed to survive situations rarely managed by children during the Nazi period. In 1946 by another series of fortunate coincidences he was reunited with his mother who had also survived the camps to which she had been sent as a slave labourer. With her second husband (his father had died shortly before the end of the war in another camp) they emigrated to the USA in 1951. Thomas Buergenthal became a lawyer, later a judge, and served for over ten years as the American judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague. I feel tremendous admiration for people like Buergenthal who have survived such terrors and yet have gone on to lead full lives of value to themselves and to others. But there is great sadness to think of the millions of individuals throughout Europe and Asia who were thrown into the machinery of death through circumstances over which they had no personal control whatsoever. Ours is a strange and terrible species.

All Things Change All of the Time

So begins our last week in Puerto Vallarta for this season. I can feel myself saying goodbye – to the dark mornings on the balcony with my breakfast; to the startling scenes of beauty overlooking the malecon throughout the day; to the liveliness and colour of the town and its people; to the friendliness of our fellow residents at Vista Del Sol and its staff; and to the delicious ocean breezes. Last year after our two months here, I was reluctant to leave: not so this year. This three month period has been a wonderful time; we know that we will be back again in December; and besides, we look forward to our five days in Mexico City, and then, to heading on to Toronto. There we will get to see our kids and our friends, and for me, wonder of wonders, my desire for the past several years to move back to the Annex will be fulfilled within the first two weeks of our arrival! It will be a hectic time but very exciting.

So very much has happened during the three months here:  we have settled into Vallarta in a more solid manner than ever before, and have begun some friendships that have real promise for the future. We sold the Croydon Road house and rented an apartment on Major St, all by virtue of the internet, and we started the process of purchasing a condo in this very fine building on the malecon. 

For the past two weeks we followed the Olympics as closely as we were able given the somewhat spotty television coverage available to us. It was wonderful to see so many young people passionately engaged in their sport, and especially to watch our Canadian athletes give everything that they had to suceed. We were ever so proud of them!

And now it’s coming to a finish, this season of loveliness, of relaxation, and of reflection. But we will take it with us and let everything that we have gained here be a part of all that we go toward.

The Mountain Meadow Massacre

And now for the rest of the story: In 1856-7 Brigham Young’s concern about defections and a general decline in religious zeal in his church led to a virtual reign of terror, not unlike those imposed by other dictatorships under duress. The principal of “blood atonement” was strongly enforced throughout the communities as Young’s Danite troops followed his promotion of “cleansing” the flock for what he believed to be an inevitable confrontation with the forces of the federal government. Speaking of backsliders and other “sinners,” Young publically proclaimed, “I want their cursed heads cut off that they may atone for their sins.” Danite true-believers saw the doctrine as an obligation of obedience to Young, and ultimately to God. John D. Lee, a Danite from his early days with Joseph Smith wrote some years later that this doctrine encompassed as well the killing of Gentiles, “considered a means of grace and a virtuous deed.”

Even before this wave of terror began, tensions all along the Utah trail had been heightening. For several years federal agents had consistently been intimidated and badly treated while attempting to carry out their duties in Utah.  In 1853 a group of engineers sent to map the Sevier River was attacked and murdered by a Mormon troop, though the event was publicized as one perpetrated by local Utes. Only about three years later was a federal judge working in the area given sworn testimony and evidence that the entire atrocity had been carried out by Mormon enforcers, under orders from Young. The residing American president, James Buchanan, responded to the general outcry that ensued demanding that justice be served. In May, 1857 one sixth of the US army was ordered to march into Utah to replace Young as governor and to put in place a new slate of federal marshals and judges. Forewarned, Young and his deputies told communities along the caravan path that the government was sending troops as well as parties of so-called settlers into their territory to irretrievably harm the church. All were forbidden to trade with or to provision any groups attempting to traverse the area. In effect the order threatened travellers who provisioned themselves under an assumption of trade in Utah with starvation or at least scurvy and other illnesses because of their lack of a diet based on any supplies other than the cattle that accompanied them.

For over a year before Buchanan’s order to the military, two brothers, Alexander and John Francher, ranchers in Arkansas, had been organizing a massive emigration of about 20 families with their herds and chattels into California. Setting out in April, 1857 the massive train of covered wagons and herds reached Utah territory in mid-August. Word had been spread throughout the area that the caravan was populated by irreligious troublemakers, bent upon sewing discord between the Mormons and the Utes. They were accused of having poisoned water sources and of having left behind a poisoned ox carcase, causing the death of some local natives. When actually meeting the travellers, people in communities along the route could see clearly that far from being a collection of troublemakers, these visitors were good, God-fearing families like themselves. Nonetheless, having been ordered not to trade with or to help them in any fashion, the Mormons were forced to comply. Any who secretly attempted to assist the clearly needy emigrants were discovered and put to death by Danite enforcers.

By September the caravan had moved through the central part of the Utah territory and was encamped at a fertile area called Mountain Meadows. Weakened by their lack of fresh produce, they planned to rest in this spot for a few days, allowing their herds to graze before pushing on further south. At breakfast around a campfire on the morning of September 7, several men were shot as a sudden outburst of gunfire raked their position. The camp rallied, pulling wagons into a defensive circle and employing their own weapons against the attackers who hidden in surrounding brush and rocks, could barely be seen. For the next three days the travelers held out against what appeared to be a raid by a party of local Utes. Men in war paint, using guns as well as bows and arrows, maintained constant pressure on the weakening caravan train, now cut off from sources of water as well as their herds.

On the fourth day a white man approached the caravan under a flag of truce. He explained that the Utes were angry with the members of the caravan, thinking that they meant them harm. He and other Mormons with him had assured the natives that the group had come in peace and had offered to escort them out of the territory. The Utes, he said, agreed to this arrangement but only if the travelers surrendered their weapons. Otherwise, he said, they would not trust in their good intentions. Weakened, low on ammunition, food and water, the settlers agreed after some discussion. Other Mormon men came forward, escorting the now unarmed men of the caravan party to one area and the women and children to another. Then at a signal given by their leader, John D. Lee, the Danite mentioned above, all of the men, the women, and children over the age of six or seven were brutally murdered. Sixteen or seventeen of the youngest children were spared as it was believed that they would be too young to retain any memory of the event. The children were later given to other Mormon families to raise. Nearby Mormon women were brought to the scene to strip all of the women and children of their clothing; the same was done with the corpses of the men. The wagons were looted for their considerable wealth: clothing, furniture, and close to $100,000 worth of gold, secreted with wagon floorboards. The caravan’s large herds of cattle and horses were rounded up and re-branded, many joining the herd of John D Lee himself.

Fairly soon after the event word reached California via apostate Mormons, fleeing the sect for their own lives. Relatives of the Fancher caravan members already settled in California as well as those remaining in Arkansas, demanded an inquiry, convinced of the falsehood of the official Mormon explanation of the massacre: an uprising of the usually peaceful Utes. In the meantime the army contingent sent to the Utah territory had become bogged down north of the area of Salt Lake City. The refusal of the Mormons to trade expected provisions, as well as the early on-set of winter at that altitude meant that the troops could go no further. Over the harsh winter hundreds died from starvation and a lack of adequate shelter. In Washington Buchanan came under fire for the inadequate prosecution of what became termed his “Utah war” at a moment when the larger issue of a potential succession of slave states from the Union was becoming a real possibility. Seeking a solution from the impass between his beleaguered troops and the intransigent Mormon government, Buchanan’s envoy brokered a deal: the new governor and the federal agents would be put in place but Brigham Young would retain real authority in the territory. Moreover, any crimes committed by the Mormons during the period of tensions would be pardoned.

Despite this protection of Young, his deputies, and the church, however, evidence gathered by investigators brought from the south into the Mountain Meadows campsite, demonstrated the actual course of events. The bodies of the victims had been buried in shallow mass graves, later raided by wolves who left their remains scattered over a wide area. Rather than having died in a battle with Indians who would have fought openly and subsequently scalped the dead, the majority of the corpses of males had clearly been executed by a single bullet shot at close range. Most of the women and the older children had been dispatched by knives and axes but also not scalped. Apostate Mormon witnesses of some of the events gave sworn testimony about the atrocities. The rich clothing and fine furniture of the travelers had visibly become the property of formerly less well-endowed Mormon families. Many had seen the gold and jewelry taken from the caravan displayed boastfully by John D Lee and others. When Brigham Young offered some of the spoils to the chiefs of local Ute tribes, they declined saying that they had had no quarrel with the people of the caravan. Investigators talked with the chiefs seeing clearly that they told the truth about their lack of involvement. Moreover, a year or two after the event a delegation empowered by the families of the surviving children was sent from Arkansas into Utah to find and return them. Though young at the time, several had clear memories of what had happened: the “Indians” in war paint who later washed and became white men; the clothing or jewelry of a parent now used by one of their keepers; the faces of men who murdered their mothers and siblings as they stood by screaming in terror. However, the official explanation of the church continued, and continues even to this day, to blame the Utes working in concert with a “renegade Mormon.”  

The latter component of the story was inserted years later, after the cataclysm of the American Civil War had been enacted and the life of the country began to re-enter a general state of peace. As questions again were raised nationally about the Mountain Meadow massacre, Brigham Young began to distance himself from John D Lee, until then one of his closest and most trusted deputies. In 1870 Young ordered Lee to remove himself from Mormon territory and soon after Lee was formally excommunicated from the church. All along he believed that he had acted on Young’s explicit orders and that he had done a righteous act for the good of the church. He obeyed, however, moving south of Utah, continuing to believe that Young would protect him from harm. In 1874 Lee was brought to trial as changes by Congress took the administration of justice from the territory, placing it in federal hands. The predominantly Mormon jury was unable to reach a decision. Lee saw this as a clear sign that Young was looking out for him.

For a time Lee was held in prison but later was released on bail until a second trial could be held. The prosecutor, Sumner Howard, was aware that without co-operation from the church officials he would likely preside over another inconclusive trial. Young was equally aware that the on-going publicity about the massacre would never cease until someone was found responsible. He and Howard came to an unwritten agreement: Young would produce witnesses and evidence sufficient to conclusively name Lee as the leader of the atrocity; in return Howard would limit the exposure of evidence damning to Young and to other members of the church hierarchy. Found guilty and sentenced to death, Lee finally realized that he had been abandoned by his spiritual father and cast as a scapegoat to protect the others. He spent his remaining months writing a manuscript of over a thousands page, laying out in great detail not only the events of the massacre itself, but the intricate involvement at every step of its preparation, enactment, and cover-up by other members of the church hierarchy, including Young himself. Before his execution by firing squad, Lee sent the manuscript to his defense lawyer, WW Bishop, asking him to publish it after his death, splitting any profits between his own family and that of Bishop. The book became a best seller.

Condemning Young’s betrayal before his death, Lee predicted that his former leader would not live six months longer than himself, a fate that would prove his complicity in all that had happened at Mountain Meadows. Three months later Young collapsed following a meal, dying after a few days likely from a ruptured appendix. In 1890 the church officially repudiated polygamy. With this doctrinal change and Lee’s conviction, the federal government was ready in 1896 to proclaim Utah the 46^th American state. To the present day the church has steadfastly refused any acknowledgement that its hierarchy was complicit in what until the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 was the largest civilian atrocity in the history of the United States.

Having told this sorry tale, I am happy to finish with the note that my own Mormon ancestors were, according to the 1851 Darling Township, Lanark County census, still living on the land that as kids, we knew as Grandma and Grandpa Craig’s farm. A few years later most of the Stretch family, except for my great-great-grandmother Mary and her sister Janet, moved to the area of Minneapolis, settling there. Though nominally Mormons, the family’s experience of it as a culture was in fact non-existent. A religion lived in isolation for decades without the support of others of like mind cannot take deeply lasting roots. When Mary Stretch married David Camelon, she undoubtedly accompanied him to his Presbyterian services, the predominant sectarian group in that area of Lanark County. Happily these people did not experience the dictatorship or the reign of terror to which those who moved west with Joseph Smith and especially, with Brigham Young were subject. And equally as happily, they were not complicit in the horrors of the Mountain Meadow massacre.

Early Mormon History

I’ve been reading Sally Denton’s book about the Mormons in which she focuses on a deliberate massacre of a group of about 140 people traversing the Utah territory in 1857, emigrating from Arkansas to California. Denton begins her tale by detailing the history of the Mormon Church in the decades leading up to the massacre. It makes a very interesting story, containing elements similar to those of other revivalist religions in the United States and elsewhere. The origins of Mormonism have points in common with Islam: a man is visited with “visions” that come from God/Allah and begins to preach a new dispensation, collecting immediate acolytes and in short order, a multitude of followers. Both of these religions borrow heavily from the Old and New Testaments, weaving their stories into a new cloth and elevating their prophet to a quasi-mystical relationship to God: the leader from whom not only doctrine, but also the practical details of life begin to flow.

In the 1820s Joseph Smith, the original prophet, penned and published his creed in what soon became the best-selling Book of Mormon, in itself converting thousands across the developing USA and in England. As people flocked to his new communion of the “Saints,” Smith enrolled them in the development of a real American communism, in which all strove to work and to succeed and to share the benefits with their coreligionists. The community antagonized nearby settlers, however, perhaps by the intensity of their attempts to proselytize or simply because of their steadily enriched holdings. Several times the new Church was forced to move to newer, less developed regions because of local conflict. Inevitably something of a siege mentality developed among the brethren. Revelation of two of the most difficult to accept aspects of their communal life began to spread a generalized sense of revulsion in the country against the group. 

The first was the practice of polygamy which though officially denied was carried out secretly by elders of the church, not least by Joseph Smith himself. Young girls, married, or engaged women were approached and seduced into joining the “spiritually” select and richly appointed households of these men. Another offensive practice called “blood atonement” was inflicted upon those who had been identified as having sinned, by a select military group called the Danites, named after the book of Daniel. By this doctrine the offender, guilty of adultery or of apostasy would be able to enter the Kingdom of the Saints only by the shedding of their own blood. The Danites were empowered to “assist” the recalcitrant to their eternal reward through a ritual of beheading. This practice was enforced throughout the early and mid-19^th centuries. Individuals attempting to extricate themselves from the sect could do so only by running away and even then could not be certain of safety as fervent Danites would pursue them.

Within the church dissention began to divide Smith’s followers between those who believed he had usurped an unconscionable degree of power and those who continued to see him as the hand and the voice of God on earth. In 1844 two apostates, former members of the inner circle of 50 Elders, started a newspaper dedicated to exposing Smith’s appropriation of communal riches and his polygamy. At this period the church was settled in a relatively small hamlet in Illinois. Smith reacted to the public charges by having the newspaper attacked and set on fire. Local law enforcers were able to arrest him within a few days. Sequestered in the local jail, Smith sent orders to his Danite troops to converge on the area to free him. Before they could assemble, however, a vigilante mob surrounded the jail and promptly murdered the Mormon prophet.

This unexpected death of their leader threw the church into confusion as no clear hierarchy obviated his successor. Some favoured Smith’s son, though still a minor, but within the ranks of elders others nursed ambitions of their own. Of these, Brigham Young over the next two or three years was able to establish his preeminence. Once acknowledged as the new supreme head of the church, Young took on not just administrative roles, but styled himself as well a seer, a prophet, and the source of the commands of God over the faithful. The usual abuses that accompany this kind of power were not long being evidenced. Young’s stable of young and beautiful wives flourished, as did his considerable personal wealth. The locus of the faithful moved once again – from Illinois where “the blood of the prophet” had been shed, to the Utah territory by the Great Salt Lake and along a navigable trail that became a major avenue for settlers moving from eastern states to California.

Here the brethren began again, working in difficult circumstances to transform hostile soil into a productive landscape for their ever-growing community. Groups traversing the area depended upon trade with these new locals: some of the herds that came with them in exchange for vegetables and grains. It was an economy that profited all. Problems were developing within the ranks of the faithful, however: some families that had enthusiastically joined with Joseph Smith in their early flush of religious fervour, grew unhappy with the dictatorial leadership imposed upon them by a clearly benefiting group of elders. Under threat, Young fell back upon that time-honoured method of rekindling communal ardour: identify a common enemy. He manipulated relations with the regional natives, the Utes, a basically quite peaceful tribe, and with the agents of the Federal government, to inspire a sense that “the Saints,” God’s people, chosen to lead humanity into the promised millennium, could be annihilated.

It was this engendered communal paranoia and commands from the top of the hierarchy to maintain it that led directly to the massacre of over 140 men, women, and children at a meadow on the Utah trail as they were travelling from Arkansas to California in September, 1857.

As this post is now becoming rather lengthy, and the blogger is aware of the time restraints as well as possibly the patience of her readers, she will now allocate the remainder of the story to her next post. Those of you uninterested in such a history may skip the next installment. Those of you who want more, please keep your breathe bated!

Meeting Canadians Abroad

Mark oft laments that I am not of a more sociable cast. My tendency of latter years has been to resist gatherings of people with whom I am not particularly well acquainted and even some with those whom I know quite well. This proclivity likely has coincided with my gradual abstention from beverages of an alcoholic nature. Repeated experiences of post-event sleeplessness have convinced me that booze and I are not a happy mix. But, the social lubricant of choice generally for folks (an Americanism gratuitously thrown in) of our age and persuasion is undoubtedly liquor. It’s not so much fun to stand about with a group of people well into their cups when you yourself are stone sober. In fact, one of the great things about being a bit (or very) high is the loosening of inhibitions with others. Now that can be fun, though it can also get one into serious trouble – that is, if spectators or recipients of your somewhat unhinged remarks or behaviour are themselves in a condition to remember the previous nights events.

But I digress. What I really wanted to write about this morning is coming to Puerto Vallarta to meet Canadians. We live in this enormous, rather sparsely populated country, which like other large and heterogeneous places is actually composed of many foci, welded together politically and economically. There are many Canadas, something I discover again and again as I travel or meet with people from one of our coasts to the other. There is Atlantic essence; the exuberantly interesting though constantly puzzling Quebec flavour; Ontario both urban and rural (not a natural or easy mix); the prairies – each province, and as I’m hearing lately, even each city marked with its own particular distinction; and lastly (if heading in a westerly direction) but beautifully, filled with west coast essence, British Columbia. There are enough rivalries, resentments, and even outright hatreds among the peoples of our vast country to mark it as a real nation.

But, one has only to come to a place like Puerto Vallarta to discover the joy that Canadians can feel when encountering their compatriots abroad. So many common assumptions, experiences, and histories to be counted on and shared! You are from Vancouver? Calgary? Edmonton? Kamloops? Quebec City? London, Ontario? Newmarket, Whitby? My long lost brothers and sisters! We are as one in the great sea of Mexico and Americanized Mexico. It really isn’t the same as meeting Americans here even if they are from cities one has visited and loves. Of course this isn’t the same experience for Mark that it is for me as he lived the first 50-odd years of his life as an American and has only since gradually adopted the mantle of Canadianism. The nuances that I sense fly by him in his easy way of being with citizens of either country. As I think of this now, I realize that he is and will always be most deeply American in culture and approach, despite his dual citizenship and his happiness at being a Canadian.

To return to my initial remarks, I find that I have actually initiated or responded to social activities here with people whom we have met. We plan to visit with Jean and Joe from Kamloops before we leave Vallarta. By invitation we had late afternoon drinks (water for me) on their balcony with Debbie and Ken from London, ON last week – we stayed too long; they must have wondered if we expected them to rollout dinner after the hors d’oevres had been devoured! At a little get together of some of  Zuri’s students (Mark's Spanish teacher) we experienced a sort of shouting acquaintance (the restaurant was inordinately noisy) with a couple of gals from Toronto and one from Chicago. With their email addresses obtained from Zuri I contacted the Toronto women and invited them to join us this coming Wednesday for a quieter supper at one of our close-by beach restaurants.

A day or so later on the malecon we ran into the Chicago lady, Luella, and had a chat with her. Now there is a little tale to be told: in Vallarta there is an organization called The International Friendship Club. We went there last year hoping to be friendly in an international manner. Mark started his Spanish lessons there with Zuri but in my own forays I didn’t experience a great deal of friendliness. (Was it just me or was there a clique overtone?) This year I realized that the group is not actually about getting together for the sake of friendship but was founded as a charitable organization to raise money to help Mexican people – in particular to fund surgery for children with cleft palates. A worthwhile endeavour to be sure and, undoubtedly, people engaged in this pursuit together would develop friendships.

When we talked with Luella that evening on the malecon she spoke about her curiosity about the organization and her intention to attend their board meeting tomorrow night to understand more what they are about. She is aware that there are no Mexicans in the organization, something that she considers a lamentable omission, given the group’s name. We hadn’t talked with Luella at all at Zuri’s gathering as her place around the oval table precluded conversation. This chat showed her to be a smart and interesting gal and I invited her to join us with the Toronto two-some on Wednesday night. We agreed to communicate about this event. I didn’t remember her name and asked for it. When she gave it to me – Luella – I facetiously said to her – such a southern name: Lou Ella, and teased her about it. She laughed and off we went.

Afterward I thought that I had perhaps been rude to have teased her, so when I wrote her an email giving the details of our planned supper, I apologized for any annoyance I might have provoked. I didn’t hear back from her. My assumption was that she had been royally pissed off with me. There are people who do not take kindly at all to teasing and I had had but the briefest acquaintance with her. I felt badly and was disappointed as I was interested in what she would have to say about the board meeting and because I had enjoyed our beachfront chat. I decided to try again. This time I wrote a line of abject apology, acknowledging that I could be silly and foolish sometimes (who knew?) and that I hoped she could forgive me and come for a visit. I received an immediate response saying that she not only had not taken offense but that she didn’t remember my throw-away remark. She had had an impression from something Zuri had told her that we were leaving Vallarta and had to cancel the supper, so hadn’t responded. In fact she was delighted with the plan to get together and is going to join us. So there! Nothing like an abject apology to get the social wheels back on track. I must remember this in future dealings.

Time and Even More Books

In two weeks we will leave the loveliness of Vallarta paradise and go to Mexico City for a few days en route to Toronto. Was it Einstein who talked about the relativity of time? Just kidding. Ah yes, time is so very elastic and changeable even if one doesn’t try to set it into a spacial continuum. Here’s an example: because we have two more weeks in PV it feels as though our stay is ending; more and more we are reorienting ourselves to Toronto and the delights and responsibilities ahead. If, however, we had just arrived here for a two week holiday, the next 14 days would feel like an ocean of tropical bliss within which we would shuffle off the Toronto coil and take unto ourselves all the joys of freedom and exploration. Living here and visiting here differ profoundly. So much for the morning’s commentary already. And now for the news:

That was a misleading statement as there is little news to impart. Mark has been dealt another round of the cold/flu(?) lurgy that’s been making the rounds, so activities have been limited. I did have another episode of high level book trading yesterday, however. I took two paperbacks over to the print shop and exchanged them for brand new, hard bound with jackets, books by Stephen Colbert – lots of fun, and, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, he of interminable conservative screeds – considerably less fun. As I was engrossed in my search a fellow bibliophile approached the shelves. Seeing my O’Reilly selection, he asked if I was taking it. Yes, I replied. Do you watch him every day? he wondered. Rarely, I falsely responded (truth being never!) I watch him each and every day, he allowed; I think a lot like he does; we share a raging hatred of Obama. I wisely refrained from comment.

My freebies from the print shop together with a couple of not in great condition but certainly readable James Clavell tomes, permitted the purchase of a further five books at Gaby’s emporium. Three are very good condition hard back books that Gaby had reduced in price as most of her customers prefer soft cover – easier to manage at the beach, I presume. There is an Elizabeth George Inspector Lynley novel – a Brit series that has been televised like the Murdock series of our buddy Maureen; a Maeve Binchy novel, A Week in Winter; and, Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter: all quite respectable selections for the library. The other two may not be up to their standards but I wanted to read them so I succumbed, adding them to the pile. One is Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, her rendition of an under the radar literature group which she conducted with young Islamic women in Iraq, an activity of daring for them and for her.

Lastly I purchased American Massacre by Sally Denton, the history of the murder of a group of 140 men, women and children as they travelled through Utah in 1857. Though blame for the incident was thrown onto natives and a dissident member of the Mormons, Benton’s research places the incident squarely within the politics and activities of the Church itself. The book contains a great deal about the history of Mormonism. I have been interested in knowing more about this sect since my own research into the Craigs, my mother’s family, led me to John Stretch, the original settler on the Craig land in Lanark County and a great-great-great-grandfather of mine. The census taken I believe in the 1840’s list John, his wife, and their 12 or 13 children all as of the Mormon faith. Since, I have learned that in the 1830s or so that Mormons travelled to England to proselytize. It’s likely that it was easier for the newly converted Mr Stretch to travel as an immigrant to Canada than to the USA. He came; he married a gal in Kingston, presumably converting her; they took up their 1000 acres in Lanark, had a large family, and made enough money that eventually the entire family moved over into the area of Minneapolis, all that is but their oldest daughter Mary who married my great-great-grandfather, David Camelon. Mary and David purchased the land from their parents. Wow, I thought when I discovered all of this. How very interesting! I must find out more about these people. Gee, maybe Romney and I are related!! Wow, again. I’m sure that you needed to know all of this. At any rate, that was my fifth book, all derived from judicious slights of hand, smoke and mirrors, lots of fun.

Books

I’ve been having a wonderful time with books here in Puerto Vallarta, not just reading them but also trading in them. I brought quite a few with me which, when once finished, I took to A Page in the Sun, a cafe and used book store a couple of blocks from our place. The owner, Gaby, takes my books and gives me credit for half the amount that she will then sell them for. When I began to go to the public library, however, I realized that this terrific resource receives no public funding. I decided forthwith to donate my books to their shelves. Close to the exit the library has several rows of books that they leave for anyone to take. A requested donation is 10 pesos for one book or 20 pesos for three. These books clearly are not suitable for their shelves because of wear or subject matter. A few are books that I myself would like to read, or, they are books that Gaby, at the cafe would buy.

Also, nearby our condo there is a print shop which has a display of used English books just inside the door. Any customers who wish may exchange books on a one for one basis. I have brought books there, looking for authors and subjects for my own perusal. Over the past couple of weeks though I have been especially searching out books that are both of literary value and in good condition, books that the library will consider keeping for their readers. At the library this morning I returned two books that I had borrowed and renewed for a further two weeks their atlas that I’ve had around for over a month (always scrutinizing our planet for great places to visit). In the for sale section I picked up three books that I would not have an inclination to read now but which I was pretty sure Gaby would take. My 20 peso (a little under $2 Canadian) investment yielded a 120 peso profit this evening. I added my new credit slip to a couple of others that I had been hoarding and did some shopping for the library shelves. I was able to purchase five books, all in suitably good condition. Two are by Canadian authors: Carol Shields’ Larry’s Party, and, Michael Crummy’s Galore. I’ll read the latter before we leave. Larry McMurtry’s Loop Group represents American authors. The library has quite a few of his books, several of which I have enjoyed while here. For a classically written English book I chose a hard cover edition of Anita Brookner’s The Rules of Engagement. My last selection was by an Austrian writer, Elfriede Jelinek, entitled The Piano Teacher. Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2004. I will read her book before I donate it also.

In the past few days I have enjoyed two small books (both about 200 pages in length). Both are set in a British colonial context though half a world and half a century apart. The first was The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally, an Australian writer whose book about Nazi industrialist Oscar Schindler’s efforts to protect his Jewish slave workers prompted the making of the film Schindler’s List. This tale is also written as a novel but is based on an historical event which took place in Australia about the time of the outbreak of the Boer War. Jimmie Blacksmith is a half-breed, born to an aboriginal woman, a product of casual sexual activity with a white man. Influenced by a white minister and his wife, Jimmy tries to “better” himself within a society which expects little from the black man, resenting and even punishing initiative where it does occur. Keneally captures the power of the ancient aboriginal culture so alive within his full-blooded uncle and brother, as well as the ways of being and thinking of the European settler society which has usurped both land and power. Jimmie Blacksmith dwells in both spaces yet in some ways in neither, torn as he is within by these separate paradigms, unable to find any ground of reconciliation. The violence that ensues and its aftermath lay bare the destruction and the human pathos inherent in colonial settings.

The second book, The Mystic Masseur by VS Naipaul, set in the Indian community of Trinidad in the mid-20^th century, is another brilliantly conceived and written reflection of colonial society, but one hitting an entirely different note. Written in 1956-7 by Naipaul, newly graduated from Oxford University and embarking on his long and fruitful literary career, it is a wryly affectionate, often laugh-out-loud narrative that captures the language, customs, and interactions within his own community of birth. An example: “My mother distrusted doctors and never took me to one. I am not blaming her for this because in those days people went by preference to the unqualified masseur or the quack dentist. ‘I know the sort of doctors it have in Trinidad,’ my mother used to say. ‘They think nothing of killing two three people before breakfast.’ This wasn’t as bad as it sounds: in Trinidad the midday meal is called breakfast.”

Naipaul never returned to live in Trinidad, probably a wise precaution as not all of his community would have appreciated the rich vein of humour that he mines with nuance and love, but sparing no example of illogic and folly. I have read quite a few of Naipaul’s books and believe that there are few who can equal his consistently beautiful prose and intelligent penetration into whatever topic he turns his mind toward.

Clearly I’m having a good time messing about with books in Vallarta. I wish that I could bring some of the ones I will have to unload in our soon to occur move, but alas, transportation of such heavy cargo is more expense than it is worth. In reading, I follow the principle of: find the really excellent authors; in trade: buy low and sell high. It all seems to work.

A Death in the Family

We heard yesterday afternoon that Mark’s brother, Mike Hall, had died. He and Bob, Mark’s second brother (of four) had been visiting us here in Vallarta until a week ago. In many ways Mike’s death was not a shock. He had been in very poor health for the past several years and had already had a heart attack. At the same time it was shocking to us, happening as it did so soon after we had spent a couple of weeks with him. Winter in Kalamazoo, like everywhere in our known universe, has been very hard. Mike hadn’t planned to come south but as the cold and the bleakness of the season persisted into January, he decided in a sudden burst of defiance to visit us when Bob was coming. They shared our second bedroom, not a commodious space for two bachelors accustomed to their own brand of privacy.

But it was a good visit. Mike’s mobility had been challenged for some time but he set out each day with Bob, or with Bob and Mark, or even on occasion by himself, to perambulate about our immediate environment. He spent a lot of time sitting on our balcony, gazing out to the ocean, smoking interminable cigarettes, and contemplating whatever internal thoughts circulated within him. He was rather quiet; he would respond if asked something or would laugh when a joke was made, but rarely, at least not in my presence would he venture a topic for discussion. Still, he appeared to enjoy himself.

Of my four brothers-in-law I think that I knew Mike the least well. My first encounter with him in the first year or so of my relationship with Mark took place in East Lansing where he was then living. He was a widower with two grown daughters, Jennifer and Stephanie, and two grown adopted sons, Kyle and Mike. At the time I was struck by an unhappiness that I felt in him, a sense of something indefinably gone wrong. There didn’t seem to be frustration or rage associated with the feeling, just a sense that he was sad and that nothing could be said or done about it. I don’t remember if I spoke to Mark about this feeling at the time, but very likely not as I may not even have fully articulated it to myself.

Over the years I saw Mike mainly in the context of the family gatherings at their mother, Evelyn’s place or at Terry’s. He was always congenial though not emotionally forthcoming in the way that I experienced with Bob and Terry. More and more like everyone else in the family I was aware of the gradual deterioration in Mike’s health. He drank too much and smoked too much. He kept his own counsel. He and Bob worked together on projects after he moved to Kalamazoo. His job as a social worker had been terminated over some controversial practices that he had used while assisting families wanting to adopt from foreign countries. This I believe was a crushing blow to him, the loss of a solid profession in which he would have been generous and helpful. Its loss meant a considerable diminution of income, but also would be experienced by anyone as a humiliation and a loss of status.

I don’t believe, however, that this was at the core of the unhappiness that I felt in Mike. I think that he struggled with depression, that multi-faceted and not especially well understood syndrome that has dogged many of our families over the centuries. Happily, various forms of “mental illnesses” as we call them, are emerging from their closeted spaces and treatments are giving people hope. I just regret that that didn’t happen for Mike. I think that Mike was possibly the most sensitive of the siblings. Being with his brothers, especially Mark and Bob, the two that he had grown up with most intensely – the three of them born within roughly a year and a bit of each other – was very important to him. I’m happy, as is Mark, that his last experience was with these two men who truly loved him. I am happy as well that I shared some of that experience, having a chance to talk with Mike in a context more conducive to sharing than that of a party. It gave me a sense of his own particular quiet grace, intelligence, and humour. We had talked with him about coming to Vallarta again next winter but this time for a longer stay. It clearly was good for his health and spirits and good for the connections of this family of which I am also a part.

When someone you know, someone a part of your own world, dies either suddenly or after a long illness, it brings especially people of our vintage closer to a sense of our own mortality, but also to an awareness of the preciousness of life and of all that makes it beautiful. 

The Heart is a Hungry Beast

I’ve been sitting on my balcony, digesting my breakfast and my thoughts, and letting the lovely ocean air take me where it will. I found myself thinking about a reaction that I had a couple of days ago when I received, along with dozens of others, a letter of love, happiness, and gratitude from our darling Martha. Beside my grown-up response of gladness for her, another set of feelings stirred: why is she saying all of these things to so many when clearly, I am her most special friend! If there is love to go around, I want it to be mine, all mine. Though I have a sense of humour about little kid reactions of this nature, I also recognize their power. I remember a time when my grandson Theoren was about three and his sister Emily, close to one. I was loading them into their car seats for their return from the cottage to Toronto. I leaned over to kiss Emily, saying to her: Goodbye, my darlin’, darlin’. Quick as a shot Theoren leaned forward in his seat and looking directly at me with accusation and anger in his face, said to me: No! I'M your darlin’, darlin’!! – a phrase I had used in speaking to him since he was a baby. Yes, I said to him: you are my darlin’, darlin’ boy and Emily is my darlin’, darlin’ girl. Oh, he said, mollified by this logic, and sat back into his seat.

How we long to be THE ONE, the special adored and irreplaceable one, the recipient of all important resources, not yet understanding that love is unlike more tangible things: it’s not a pie that can be divided so many times until only the crumbs remain. On the contrary, the more it is shared, the more it grows and deepens – something like the story of the loaves and the fishes. But I do understand from personal pain and experience that desire to grasp and to hold and to find security from a kind of delusion that we can ever be all in all to another. We have our special loves and absolutely, Martha and Theoren are two of mine, people who will always hold a historically (as in our shared stories) and personally (as in the elements that have attracted us to one another) created pride of place within me. At the same time as my own life changes as do theirs, and indeed as do those of all of my friends, I can see and feel how we grow and change and expand beyond the boundaries that we have lived within in the past.

The heart is indeed a hungry beast that must be fed, respected, and understood.

This Immediate Future

I started this blog when Mark and I had been here in Puerto Vallarta for three weeks. Three weeks from tomorrow we will be leaving, going to Mexico City for five nights and then, on March 6 back to Toronto. It’s interesting to see how one’s mind settles down into really being in a place over time and then as that period draws to a close, one begins to turn again in a more focussed fashion to the things that lie ahead. We will be ever so busy when we arrive in TO: visiting our prospective new digs on Major St to get a better sense of the space; sorting, packing, and disposing of the unnecessary at 2B Croydon; arranging for movers; to say nothing of the experience of taking on once again the regular round of activities and work that we have in Toronto; and, seeing the kids and friends. As that time comes closer, it occupies my mind more: I mentally roam about our house, thinking about what needs to be done to organize all of our accumulated things. Moving every few years greatly facilitates this process as one is forced to continually re-evaluate what is essential.

Here in Vallarta we continue with our current daily routines: the walks on the malecon, swims in the pool on the roof, and lots of reading. The longer we stay here the more we gain a sense of the rhythm of the place, a feel for some of the language, and some connection with other ex-pats who live here for part or most of the winter. Recently we have met several people who are regular residents in the building or in the Zona Romantico, the area where we live. The conversations always begin with similar mutual inquisitions: Where are you from? How long are you staying? Have you been coming here for a long time? There are many Canadians who come here every winter, people from Vancouver, a few from the prairies, some from Quebec, and a fair number from Ontario. Like us many have become devotees of Vallarta over the years as they have succumbed to its beauty and charm. It’s always interesting chatting with these people and finding points of common interest that promise the possibilities of more lasting friendships.

Mark and I have had many conversations over recent weeks about the directions that we will take in the coming months and years. Now that the Croydon house has been sold and the condo in Orillia is rented, we have many options before us. One thing has become clear to me: I have more interest in being free to travel and explore more places in the world than I have in investing capital and commitment to a particular place to live in Toronto. At least for the immediate (and possibly longer term) future, renting a place seems a great way to have residency but to maintain flexibility. I am very fortunate to have a partner who, like me, is ever interested in visiting and learning about other places in this vast and wonderful world that we live in. We are currently planning a trip in the fall to Istanbul, using that city as a jumping off point for a cruise on the Black Sea. This body of water joins Turkey, Bugaria, Romania, the Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia. Millennia of history as their peoples have interacted along those coasts! Lots to learn and think about.

And so life goes on – one day at a  time but also one immediate future at a time, all things unfolding as they do.

International Tensions? and The Happiness of Companionship

Mark and I were on our way out a couple of nights ago to get the newspaper. Close to the door of our building we stumbled upon an encounter between a couple with a large, older dog and a man with a tiny, yappy dog. The little dog was straining at its leash and yapping furiously at the larger dog. Evidently there had been words between the two men before we arrived. Just then the fellow with the big dog shouted at the other man: Are you a Canadian? (voice laden with scorn) You MUST be a Canadian! The other’s rejoinder as he stalked off: Fuck you! Ah, the joys of civil society.

I’ve spent much of today on my own. Two of my four brothers-in-law, Bob and Mike Hall, have been staying with us for the last ten days. This morning Mark and the lads drove off in a rented jeep to explore a couple of towns up in the mountains east of here. I thought briefly of joining them but realizing that the ride to these towns is about three hours, I did the math as they say, and hastened to decline. Sitting in a jeep for six hours somehow did not appeal. But they didn’t mind, so off they went. Little differed in how I spent my time today from other days: lots of reading, some walking and grocery shopping, meals, a nap. You get the picture. But not having those small connectors that are part of one’s life with a companion, is actually huge. Things are just somehow more flat. Nobody to natter on to about some incidental exchange at a store or on the malecon; nobody to tease about the minutiae of day-to-day bloopers; nobody to bounce plans or thoughts off. Wow! No fun.

My sister turned 75 last week and I am fast approaching that same vintage. I thought of my mother at her 75^th birthday dinner. A few weeks earlier my parents had been given the news that dad had inoperable cancer. She was facing a fast approaching widowhood. He died two months later. My mother and I were not close – the closest we ever became was during the last few months of her own life, last spring and early summer, when she was so very frail and had lost much of her former tough carapace. She wanted connection and she was pitifully grateful for any show of affection. During the 20 years that she lived alone after dad’s death, I never saw any hint from her that her life was hard or lonely, though I had to assume that it was. Companionship of any nature is humanly essential for a happy life; having one’s own special buddy around is an enormous blessing.