I'm Not Dead

To my readers: Family concerns are currently preventing me from
posting to "Don To Earth", and from responding to the numerous
e-mails that I have received and continue to receive.



Don

My Grandfather And Others

As I deal with people, some of whom are very close to me, I think
of my grandfather, whom I have mentioned before. He died of
"fever" in his kidneys at 87 years of age, and it was said that if
you listened carefully at his grave, you could still hear his heart
beating. My point is that the way he chose to live was very
easy on his heart. I never saw him excited, and his lifelong
habit was to be 20 minutes early for everything. I remember him
on Sunday, with the horse and wagon ready outside, sitting reading
while waiting for the rest of us to appear. A couple of months
before he died, he had mowed the front lawn carefully with a
scythe, in preparation for our arrival from Halifax for the summer
vacation, and then had run over a mile to help put out a fire at
the creamery in which he held shares. He was part of a bucket
brigade bringing water from the lake, and this is how he developed
the kidney trouble that took him away about two months later.




With the exception of emergency situations like this, my grandfather
was knowingly not under stress, and was always ready ahead
of any appointed time. Not everyone is like my grandpa -- some
like to see how close to the line they can come, and they frequently
miss, some being late by a predictable 20 minutes, which seems to
be the magic length of time to be late or early. For myself, I am
on time for things. In fact, as a deadline creeps up on me, I
resort to my training in radio and television before there was
tape delay. This means that I tend to be about five minutes early
for whatever is happening, and it is so calming that I do not know
why everyone does not deliberately follow the example of my grandfather.

American Express

Because my wife is in a nursing home -- one of several types
of institutions specializing in reasonably comfortable, but very
expensive, accommodations for senior adults -- my finances,
which were looking better than for a long time, need careful
re-examination.



Leave us begin with credit cards, most of which "save money" by
allowing us to "take advantage" of golden, silver and brass
opportunities, sometimes in very far away lands, where you can
get great bargains by spending a few thousand to get there and,
of course, back again (by this point in the sentence, I've
forgotten who's taking advantage of whom). If I seem to be
casting doubt on all these prospects and their premises, of course
it is intentional. Anyway, back to my title, and the fact that I
hold title to such a card, at least until AmEx gets tough with me,
which I sincerely hope never happens.



To feel prosperous, I took out American Express a few years ago,
and since I have an inherited Presbyterian conscience about money,
I keep it paid with a
warm feeling
about these nice folks allowing me into this exclusive club of
countless millions. I have an
AmEx Gold Card,
as well as a regular one, for all of which I pay an annual fee.
But since these days there seem to be so many other credit angels
offering me free money, I must stop and rein in the vanity, because
that is all it is -- I refer you to Ecclesiastes:
"All is vanity".



Unfortunately, since this is a blog post, which for me begins its life
on the written page, my time has run out. To my
credit,
I've kept within my self-imposed one-page limit.

Who Are You?

Here in Canada, we are hearing much about nationhood, or at least
about nations. We have the
First Nations,
the
Quebec nation,
the
nation of Alberta,
and more
(Newfoundland?).
We hear also of the Catholics, who used to be the Roman Catholics,
and of course there are Greek Orthodox Catholics, Coptic Catholics,
and more. The word "catholic" is still used to mean "universal", as
in "catholic tastes", and "nation" means that beyond our borders,
all are foreigners. I'm afraid Humpty Dumpty has been at it again,
with his "words mean what I mean them to mean", and his firm
conclusion that what matters is "who is to be master -- that's all".



It is easy to insist on definitions, even legal definitions, in
matters such as these, but in every case we can see a struggle
for dominance, or at least for survival, and we find ourselves back
for another reading of
Instincts of the Herd.
One thing is certain: the legal profession will always be with us.
It is apparent that each of us wants to belong, and to defend the
herd or group with which we identify ourselves. Of course, since
each of us belongs to several herds, we cannot always be sure to which
herd we are loyal at any one time. Is that herd geographic,
ethnic, religious, economic, or other? Wolves don't have this
problem, nor do ants. But we have this problem in abundance,
even with the sexes, which now are three, or is it four?



So who are you? Who I am depends on where I am, and with whom
I am. All right -- like the rest of us, I'm not sure.

Series Habits

U-pun my word, my title is serious.
Habits are very serious things indeed. Without them, we would
have to figure out certain actions anew each shining or foggy
day. I suppose memory would help, but morning routines would be
matters for attention, rather than things to be done on
autopilot
while planning the day. So clearly habits are not all bad;
in fact, they make orderly life possible. And habits do come in
series -- one leads to the next, and they supplement
each other. We have a series of actions to get us up and cleaned
and dressed and looking our best for whatever sort of day we see
ahead. Then another series gets the car out and down the
driveway and navigating the morning traffic. We can arrive at work
having forgotten a very important errand that we intended to do
on the way, but which was not a part of our usual routine.



Other habits cannot be regarded as good without some thought.
We can gradually stay up later and later, and acquire all the ills
of sleep deprivation. We can consistently stop in at the bar
on the way home for a few drinks and some fried food, without
consideration for calories or a history of family heart troubles
or the possibility of having to breathe into a police machine
for a routine alcohol check.



Clearly bad habits are hard to change, but good habits are
wonderful. At the very best, we can put a good habit into the
place of a bad one. The worst option is to pay habits no
attention, and they will indeed look after themselves.

Blogs: Servant, Master, Or Free Mouthpiece?

I am now a veteran of fifty or so blog posts, but like all the rest
of you, I have cogitated for years, which for me is generations.
I have thought and written about my various opinions, and about
all the wisdom which must have been repeatedly worked out and then
lost again throughout the millennia. In light of this,
I am impressed beyond words (well, almost) by the arrival of this
form of communication called the blog, which, at the very least,
equals the invention of the printing press. Read that, and remember
that it is coming from one (me) who is regarded (by me and others)
as glum and difficult where words are concerned, and generally
not inclined to be effusive.



Blogs are wonderful. Vanity is served at once. If you don't listen,
it is your fault. Also, by the very nature of the medium, your
audience sorts itself out. Readers don't pay anything, so they
really can't complain. Anyone can join in, rebut, whatever --
surely this is
democracy,
whatever that is, at its most lively and pushy.
In the realm of human communication, blogs seem to me
to be the atomic units that transistors are in the world of digital
devices that surround us.



Having said all this, I am careful, questioning, and a little
frightened about the future. I do not think that we, with our
unique facility of language, are to be trusted with much. But at
the same time, I don't want to stop the momentum of whatever
it is that will emerge from the tunnel. Stay tuned.

Honesty? Impossible - But Negotiable, Of Course

It seems obvious that nobody can ever be honest at all times.
Nor can we be absolutely against stealing and killing. These are
negotiable, as are many issues in life. Usually we are for
honesty and against killing and stealing, but killing can earn us
the highest medal for valour, and the morality of stealing certainly
depends on the circumstances, while complete honesty as to a loved
one's whereabouts may doom that person to death.



No hunter is ever entirely honest with his prey. No soldier will
reveal everything to the enemy who is trying to kill him.
No starving colonized native is going to be completely forthright
with the European plantation owner who forces him from his
ancestral lands. In fact, it is ridiculous to consider the
question of honesty except in relation to the more fine-grained
question: Honest with whom? This brings us immediately to matters
of loyalty, and thus to
herds and the herd instinct.
We risk getting into the biology of competing organisms, and even
of our own tissues, which can reject very slightly different ones,
or mistakenly identify self as foreign.



Many religious positions deal with absolutes. Often these are
based on unexamined premises, which, for Heaven's sake
(pun intended), must be the soul of dishonesty.
All too often such stances remind us of
Alice
and
Humpty,
and his dictum that what really matters is
who is to be master.
So once again the question of honesty gives way to defining
the terms we use, and to defining our interests in a situation.
Perhaps clarity can be brought to the whole issue of honesty
by one attempt to define its opposite: "A lie is an untruth
told to someone who deserves to hear the truth".

Now I Feel Responsible

My blog, a little over six months old, has become popular.
Until now, I have been able to write about anything that occurred
to me, not really caring how many people paid attention.
Now I feel I have a standard to uphold, and I fear this will
cramp my style -- which I didn't try to have.
No doubt this phenomenon is part of being or feeling responsible.



I have seen this happen before. When the
Canadian Museums Association
was put together, with little or no money, it had a real flavour
because of the personalities of the eager volunteers. With time,
and growth, and hired hands who saw to their own survival, quite
naturally some of this flavour was lost. We oldsters hardly
recognize it now, even if occasionally we receive some honour
for our contributions in the past. I fear this will happen
in the free, accidental world of blogs, including my own.



Part of this might be a holding back from subject matter
or treatment that could offend some category of readers. Part
might be an inclination to look for stuff which will be even more popular.
Now there is a foot on the brake and a foot on the accelerator,
if ever I've seen one (or two). No matter. Whatever happens,
I know I am now a thoroughly hooked blogger.

It Bothers Me That I Have To Go

Nowadays, no matter how much I try to put off decisions until later,
I must admit that everything seems to bother me. For example, my
writing bothers me, because I have to be careful to be legible,
even to myself. I am quite sure I have had a stroke (the final
medical diagnosis is still pending), a small one I suppose,
since I still drive a few weeks after my 93rd birthday. At this
age, I must say that I do delight in people's amazement when
I tell them how old I am. But under all this is the knowledge
that I am the oldest male on either side of my family, maternal
or paternal, and I know I must go fairly soon. I just don't like
the idea.



I've floated on the remark "Been there, done that" for some time
now, but the notion that the moment is approaching when I can
no longer say this bothers me. The truth is, I don't want to go.



There are many reasons. For too long I have behaved as if I could
postpone going indefinitely, and thus have so many things that I must
do first. I don't want my successors to find out how much I could
have done that isn't done, not by a long shot. There are numerous
notes and letters I must write. There are places I've wanted
to travel, but never had the chance. Actually, each of you
can, if you think yourself into my age, fill out the list.
At least you can try to understand why I say that I hate to go.

A Stroke Of Bad Luck?

Apparently, I have had a TIA, a
transient ischemic attack,
and like blogs, this is now a part of my life, for a long time to come,
I sincerely hope. To those less familiar with medical terminology,
I've had a small stroke. This was just hours before I turned 93,
and it affects my writing. If it is a good thing, it is because
it will also affect my behaviour, causing me to attend to matters that
I have postponed, but which should not be left to my heirs.



Some of what I need to do is simply to
simplify.
I have been meaning to get rid of my credit cards, including
Platinum American Express, "forced" on me by vanity (at an
annual fee). Then there are magazines that I glance at, but do not
read, and which add to the fairly neat piles all over the place.
Many items around me are just waiting for attention or for use that
will never come. If I wrapped them properly,
could they serve as gifts?



One good thing is that I appreciate people more. A flood of
phone calls, for example, came within the 48 hours which included
my stroke, my birthday, and Christmas, and for these I was most
grateful. They were from family, of course, and also from
my colleague with whom I came to Toronto 41 years ago to establish the
Ontario Science Centre.
Enough. My point is that I have had quite a wake-up call, and
I intend to heed it.

Why I Am A Cautious Coward

I've given much thought to this, whether I am really a coward,
or just extremely cautious.



Whichever it is, I think I know the primary reason -- namely,
that I did not get killed in the Halifax Explosion (the topic of my
last post).
Having survived this tragic event, along with the experiences
that followed, why would I go out of my way to prove
how brave I was by deliberately running risks? Living in seven
addresses in the two and a half years after the Explosion, making
adjustments to each, why would I not play it safe, if possible?
By the age of six and a half, I was a very cautious creature.



One of the other main reasons to be careful was that I was small,
and always in the company of others who could slap me down,
physically speaking. But I was smart, and did homework for
the big boys, who became my protectors. To belong to a group
did not seem to pay, because gangs beat up gangs, and the small
members got it the worst. All through my growing up years,
the benefits of being careful and waiting until I had some
advantage were emphasized to me. And the flip side of being
watchful in order to avoid trouble is that while observing
developments, opportunities stare at you, first to make friends,
and second to get in on good things early.



Along the way, from time to time, the question of when caution
become cowardice intrudes. If I ever solve this one,
I'll let you know.

On December 6th, I Missed A Party!

The party I missed was at
TV Ontario,
where I spent several years. That day, I was helping to move
my wife from a retirement home to the nursing home where she
still is. It was such a busy day that it was over before
I remembered the party. But the date is also significant for
a much more lifelong reason (and I do mean lifelong) -- it
was the anniversary of the day in 1917 when the
greatest man-made explosion prior to the atomic bomb
went off in Halifax Harbour. The blast was fueled by over 2500 tons
of TNT, picric acid, and other volatile materials in the
Mont Blanc, just leaving for convoy overseas to take part
in the war of 1914-18. I was four years old, and survived
physically unscathed, but my mother lost an eye and my aunt
was thoroughly crippled. The large family across the street
was not so fortunate -- all but one died at breakfast.
It was, and still is, the dividing date in my life. During
the next two and half years, I lived in seven places,
three of them foster homes.



All this made me anything but a headstrong hero about anything.
I learned I was not the boss anywhere, and this made me a
very good boss later on, as a teacher, as the head of museums, and
as the chairman of associations of various sorts. I was careful,
and preferred to be understated until I showed my hand, although
I know my real nature was to take charge. The Halifax Explosion
took my DNA and made me what I became. On December 6 each
year, I am very conscious of all this.



Life goes on, however, so no TVO party, and I try to come to terms
with my wife's weakened state. Sadly, no one I met that day
seemed aware of the significant historical event that happened
exactly 89 years prior. Tempus does fugit.

The Blog That Wrote Itself

The incredible things that happen in life outdo anything that your
imagination, or mine anyway, could come up with (almost ending this
sentence with a preposition, which we know
we cannot do).
Enough of that -- back to the blog that wrote itself. I think
it is about the long arm of coincidence, or the odds of certain
improbable
things happening.



The coincidence is that my wife, who rarely travels due to her
current medical condition, and my daughter, who lives far from
here, both ended up at
Niagara Falls
on the same day, each completely unaware of the other,
perhaps even watching the falls at the same time.



My daughter and her husband were attending a wedding, and those
details seem to defy chance. Her husband is a teacher, and a
brilliant student of his, from Inner Mongolia, was marrying
a girl from Nova Scotia. The wedding was set for that classical
honeymoon spot, and his parents, academics themselves, flew in
from China to witness their only son's nuptials. The wedding
went well, and all stayed over for a few days. My daughter
phoned to ask about her mother, but I had
no new news, as I was just about to leave to see Margie on my
daily visit to the nursing home where she has been for over
a month. When I arrived, to my great surprise Margie had
left, part of a busload gone on a sightseeing trip, complete
with wheelchairs.



Of course, the trip was to Niagara Falls, and so my wife and
daughter were there at the same time, but certainly not together.
My wife gets back at eight o'clock, it is now six, and this episode
ranks with the one where I met my wife in the first place, when
I was in an unfamiliar town in Nova Scotia, buying milk for
a travelling lunch. (Perhaps more about that later.)



I suppose my question really is: Do such impossible odds happen
to all of us?

Sex And All That

Whether we are implicit or explicit about it, sex permeates our
behaviour and opinions. There is, of course, sexual activity
that leads to progeny, wanted or not. But in any case, if we think
for a moment we realize to what extent
sexual behaviour is actually herd behaviour.
The consequences of this may lead us to wring our hands in despair,
become cynical, or simply reserve judgment.



The expressions of our sexual drives, and reactions to them,
are certainly diverse. We have pornography, laws, surgical procedures,
even discussions about how many sexes to recognize. Sex, it seems,
is inextricably linked to love, but love is an infinitely malleable
word -- we have love of country, love of good food, even love of
wordplay (mea culpa). Yet however we try to identify love, gender
creeps in and dominates.



To get back to sex, not really having left it, we have difficulties,
for example, in drawing lines between what is art, what is pornography,
and what is simply historical or cultural description.
To some, sex is primarily a sport, with its wins, losses, and
downright fun. Clearly some of this fun is sin, especially when it
involves relationships too close to yourself, like mother,
brother, and so on.



Of course, a lot of sin produces fine children, by whatever
standard we judge them. At times this is due to the joining of recessive
genes, which can produce results ranging from very bad to exceptional.
A number of the great musicians were the offspring of what we would call
repeated incest, letting recessive genes do their magnificent best.
Enough of this. Now try not to think about sex for the next ten minutes.

Attractive Stuff

There is a limited number of ideas that hold up under examination,
however insistent, repeated, or challenging. One of these, so far,
is "Everything in the universe attracts everything else with a
constant and unfailing force". We know it here as
gravity.
In our solar system, the planets zoom about in elliptical orbits
that slowly decay over time. Eventually, the sun will win and
swallow the planets. Further out, all the stars attract all the
others, affecting the motions of stars within groups of stars
(galaxies), within groups of groups of stars (galaxy clusters).
The attractive nature of stuff, or matter, cannot be denied.



Since stuff accounts for the motion of stuff in a well-behaved way,
astronomers can use mathematical formulas (ranging from simple to
elaborate) to map these motions, and to determine where all these
objects are located. Of course, as a first approximation we
can begin with the naked eye, as humans have done for millennia.
We can see an impressive amount on a clear, moonless night. And
we are quite sure that most, maybe all, of the stars we see have
more stuff orbiting around them, ranging from dust to planets.
But what about the rest of space, where there are no visible objects
of which we are aware? Apparently something in "empty" space also
affects the motions of celestial bodies -- something called
dark matter.
It may be spread so evenly, or have such elusive properties, that
it can never be found by our very sophisticated instruments.
However, indirect evidence says it exists nonetheless, this elusive
matter, this condensed energy.



So there you have it -- stuff, whether visible or invisible,
attracts. This principle is as commonplace as a falling apple,
and as enigmatic as dark matter. Yet lest you attribute too much
power to this wonderful
force
called gravity, keep in mind
Einstein's wry disclaimer:
"Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love".

I'm Almost Man Of The Year

Well, I am the "Person of the Year", because
Time Magazine says so,
and I am also almost the "World's Oldest Blogger",
except for
a Swede
who is a year or so older, and
an American
who is just a few months older. This seems to be the story
of my life, to be the very reliable runner-up. I suppose I should
say that I am pleased about all this, and I am -- almost.



Time's award is to all of us who create content on the Web.
I do that, and I also spend a growing number of hours trying to
keep up with the reactions to my "Don To Earth" blog.
In the past, I understand that I have been considered for the
Order of Canada
for my services in museums, libraries, heritage,
and radio and television broadcasting. I realize I am almost
bragging here, but I don't think I have stepped, or slid, over
the line. I just had to make the point that I am very nearly
as good as any of them.



It is not hard to see how my various interests and involvements
have tied together, how one thing has led to another. Broadcasting
promoted my museums, and broadcasting also piled up ideas that
could be used in other contexts, so when a family member pushed
me into blogs, my brain and my filing cabinet were full of material,
and suddenly there I was on the Internet, all over the world.



I think I have more than almost made my case, and with no "almost"
about it, I accept Time Magazine's honour. Thank you very much.