Larry Gibbons
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Universal Gifts

28/3/2017

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Picture Tidy Cats

Sixty-seven blog posts! Hard to believe, and do you know who got this blog thing going?   Sue.

You see, I was in Kingston one summer, visiting family and friends. One evening I phoned Sue from my cheap motel room. This room had a hole under the sink just the right size for a fat rat, and one night, I heard munching and the smacking of tiny, moist lips while I was half asleep.

Anyway, during our chit-chat, she informed me she’d set up a web page. For little old me. Not only that, but she’d ordered business cards. A thousand of them. I didn’t have to lift a finger. How easy was that?

Sue is my super editor and writing champion. And that’s besides being my partner, confidante and friend. Sue can edit anything and do it in her sleep. No kidding. I’ve heard her parsing her dreams. Ha!

Every writer needs an editor like Sue.

                                                “To write is human, to edit is divine.”
                                                                                           Stephen King,  On Writing

***
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Sue On Her Daily Walk
Sue and I met in the forest.  Seems fitting as we both love the wild. The wilder the better and neither of us is much for the noise, fumes, concrete and aloof busyness of cities.

One of the traits I most admire in Sue is her concern and empathy for those who need understanding and help in finding their way through the layers and layers of boundaries, imposed prerequisites and class expectations society confronts us with. And Sue understands how these social separators operate and could have, if she’d been so inclined, slipped easily into one of these societal comfort zones.

There are, in this world, well-off, self-satisfied people who don’t understand the complex realities behind their good fortune. These folks can make life quite hellish for those who aren’t so blessed, because many of these lucky ones are found in places of power, and some, regrettably, use their positions to negatively affect the lives of the less fortunate.

Sometimes, their jobs are to actually help the disadvantaged and so, if they lack humility, empathy, intelligence and the emotional smarts, they can be quite destructive to the well-being of those requiring help.

Sue, who possesses a kind and stalwart heart, has spent much of her life trying to help struggling individuals learn how to cope in this full-speed-ahead world. Often on her own time. Listening to  people and helping them to regain their self respect and find fulfilling positions. And it isn’t an intellectual cause for Sue, or a makes-me-feel-nice-inside thing. It’s her passion.

An example. Can you imagine going to a job interview, with your teeth falling out because you have no money for dental care? What’s the chance you’d get the job? This was actually one of the many concerns that deeply affected Sue, as one of her adult students faced this situation.

I remember, one sunny afternoon, standing under a large oak tree and chatting with Sue. During this conversation, Sue told me a sad story about a little Aboriginal girl who’d drowned on the northern reserve where she had been teaching. I could see that she’d been greatly affected by this tragic story. I have some tragic stories of my own and I could feel my tears threatening to do a belly flop onto the soft earth.

That was actually the conversation where I experienced that scary flutter in my stomach. When I thought, “Oh, oh! A new relationship beginning here. A whole new world approaching. Dive! Dive!”

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Mountain Wreath
Because I could see that we were on the same page. She knew about hurting and failure and being misunderstood and hanging in there, in spite of it all. Following her passions, no matter how inconvenient. And I realized she was a person I could trust with my life’s stories. Trust with my weaknesses, strengths and oddities. Writers and other creative types seem to have plenty of peculiarities. Fortunately, many of mine entertain Sue and prevent her from becoming bored with this whole being-with-Larry thing.

I remember visiting a school where Sue worked. I was particularly struck by two older students. There they were, sitting behind a long wooden table. They may have been in their fifties or late forties. They were struggling with math problems. When I’d been introduced to them, the aura of friendliness and acceptance they’d returned was humbling. What stories could they tell me?

         “A big young bare-headed woman in an apron

       Her hair slicked back standing on the street

 One stockinged foot toeing the sidewalk

            Her shoe in her hand. Looking intently into it.

           She pulls out the paper insole to find the nail

That has been hurting her.

                                                                 William Carlos Williams, “Proletarian Portrait”

***


They were friendly without a bagful of judging and reminded me of some of my Aboriginal friends.  I remember a hiking friend telling me he liked being with Aboriginal people because they didn’t judge him. I say “Amen!” to that.

And there was Sue, washing the classroom’s dishes and I remember thinking, as I observed her dignified and caring movements, that I was witnessing a touch of saintliness. That this classroom was more spirit-filled than many well-dressed-parishioner-stuffed churches.

Believe you me. I know many of Sue’s stories. And I know that most of her life, the choices she has made were honest, tough, necessary and caring responses to what the universe had tossed at her. I have no doubt.

Picture
Sue With Her Beloved Buster
I also know she has, for years now, been suffering from three chronic diseases. Diseases which keep her in constant pain. High test pain or low test aches and pains and not to mention all the medications she has to swallow. My god, but you have to be tough to stay sane and keep your head above water while going through all this crap. And, on top of all that, still edit this writer’s writing. I think she deserves a friggen’ medal. Or at least a photo on an occasional wall, mantel or shelf.
***
                “—-My worn plaid shirt sleeve,
                       polished the journal page
                       as my pen sought immortality.
                       I whisked away a faded piece of thread,
                      disorder where I demanded clarity.

                      A pen for my eternity.
                      A pen for his fecundity.
                      Lily pads clinging to purity,
                      the bog’s mist pulling the curtain on us all.
                      But my pen is loaded with hope.”

                                                               Larry Gibbons, “Seminal Dreams”

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Who Says It's Spring?
Picture
SPRING’S FIRST TRUCK BUD
Our relationship began because of words. Really, and I’ll give you the shorter version.

One April day, I drove to the forested area where Sue lived. I didn’t know Sue at the time. She wasn’t even a glint in my truck’s headlamps.  Anyway, I drove my old truck up the dirt road and parked on top of a hill. The road was mushy from the spring thaw and I only went up one hill because I was afraid I might get stuck. I then hiked into the Frontenac Provincial Park.

When I returned to my truck there was a note stuck behind my truck’s windshield wiper. It basically said that this note-writing person was very upset and blamed me for digging up the road. Apparently this letter-person had worked hard and long to get the road graded and gravelled and then along comes this yahoo, me, who’d torn up the road.

I was miffed at this note and thought it had been penned by a guy whom I didn’t particularly like. So, later on, I wrote a letter to this letter-writer.

Well, I won’t go into everything that happened, but suffice to say some strange and coincidental things occurred. The kind of happenstances that don’t, I think, occur so often in the mass dating services. So, as the two of us fired letters back and forth, we came to an understanding. Partially because of my non-edited letters. Which proves you can get your point across by using many different grammatical concoctions.

As a result of our pen-palling back and forth, I eventually found out it was Sue who had written the letter and she found out it was Larry who had written back.  At one point she emailed me and invited me to drop around some time, big boy. Ha!

I did drop in at some later time. I didn’t want to look too eager, plus I was a little shy. Like who was this woman who lived in a cabin in the woods?

Picture Sue's Cabin in the Woods

But we met and thus began our talking and our courting and our hearing each other’s stories. Sad and happy.  And voila! I ended up with a companion who is happy to live in a snow belt, in the forest, on a flood plain which is the home of a zillion black flies. Because we live in a place where only the snow flies and the black flies.

And I ended up with a super editor to boot.

And now for a funny story. It has to do with the road situation which got us together in the first place.

Oh, and by the way, it turned out it hadn’t been my truck which damaged the road, but a Ministry of Natural Resources truck.

So there.

Anyway, one day in the early winter, and after a light snowfall, I decided to hike into the park. I was now living with Sue in her cabin and because of the weather we’d begun parking our vehicles a half K down the road. That’s where we stockaded them in the winter months because our road didn’t get snow ploughed.

So, I threw on my winter clothes and hiked to the park gate. When I got to the gate I saw a four-wheel-drive truck parked by the gate and three fellas hiking out of the woods towards this truck. I knew the one fella, but not the other two.

The man I knew, shouts, “Oh, there’s the ass-hole!”

I was a little taken aback. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

He knew he’d confused me, so he explained to the others and to me what he’d meant by that rather rude statement.

“This is Larry, who was called an asshole by Sue, the woman he’s now living with. He’s the guy who wrecked the road by driving over it in the early spring.”

Now I knew what he was getting at and I didn’t bother arguing about who was guilty and not guilty.

The walk to the gate was a long enough hike, so I took up his kind offer to give me a ride back. His truck, as I mentioned, was a four-wheel-drive, so he had no trouble navigating the rough road. And I couldn’t help but notice that his truck was carving some fresh gouges into the partially snow-covered, but muddy road. I was sensitive to this fact because of the earlier conversation.

That evening, Sue and I had to get ready for a Christmas party with my co-workers. So, Sue’d made a big feed of devilled eggs. I love devilled eggs.

It was kind of a big deal because I believe this was the first party that Sue and I were going to attend as a couple. Sue was, obviously, worried about meeting these strangers and so, I’m sure she took extra care with the devilled eggs.

Later on, we hiked down the dirt road towards our vehicles. It was dark and we had to use head lamps. We hiked toward the top of the first big hill. There were two steep hills we had to deal with on this road.

We carefully walked down the first hill. It was slippery and Sue hung onto her precious devilled eggs for all she was worth.  Suddenly, Sue slipped or tripped over a fresh gouge in the road. Down she went, valiantly trying not to flatten her devilled eggs.

And then I heard, echoing through the forest and across the nearly frozen lake, “Who's the asshole who made this mess on the road?”

Sue survived, the eggs survived and the party was a good time. However, I couldn’t wait to get back to work and tell my friend he’d now joined the very elite, ‘Asshole Club’.

Picture
Ice Lamb
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My Consciousness Hurts

9/3/2017

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Picture
WINTRY VERTICALS
One snowy day, I was sitting on the couch watching television while Buster was sitting next to me chewing on his pork and chicken Oinkie. Suddenly, we were attacked by a public awareness health commercial.

Up to this point I was feeling calm. I wasn't worried about anything specific, although my brain was probably gnawing on some niggling non-specific thing. But I’ve learned to handle those, and besides, nowadays my mind is loaded with senior’s mental farts. So my worries don’t last long enough to get cemented into my brain, and I simply forget what I’m worrying about and move on to another amorphous concern.

As for the public awareness health commercial...its reason for existence? To remind me of a disease I might’ve otherwise forgotten. I certainly hadn’t been thinking about it while watching the CNN horror show.
But, they were right. I hadn’t been thinking about the dangers of hepatitis and the first question that came to my mind was, ‘Am I now better off, physically, mentally or spiritually by being reminded of this disease’?

Picture
No Worries
Because, you see, I have quite a list of ailments and diseases and other torments that I mentally chew on from time to time. You know: shingles, pneumonia, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, heart attacks, epilepsy, poison ivy, arthritis, sciatica pain, tumours - pick a spot:  need for knee and hip replacements, bronchitis, aids, herpes, gout, baldness, psychological malfunctions such as anxiety, panic attacks, depression, hallucinations, bi-polar disease, etc., etc., etc.

But, praise the Lord, I’d been freed from my ignorance. Seen the light.

“Here, boy. Yes, you. Catch this fifty-dollar bill and buy me the big turkey in the butcher shop’s window. And be quick about it. I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with myself. Oh my!”

And so on and so on.

Thank you, public awareness people. I will always be in your debt for my chronic low-grade anxiety.

Picture
FEEDING THE TREE NUTRITIOUS FOOD
Because of this consciousness-raising reminder, I can now sit in a canoe floating down a sleepy stream under a happy sun, cozied up to by a southern breeze and maybe even by a southern belle, and say to myself, “I’ve been notified. I now know of another disease I can worry over if I feel too happy and content with myself.”

Or when I’m sitting in a doctor’s office, feeling my blood pressure rising because I’m reading all the disease warnings and helpful tips which are pasted all over the waiting room walls, I can now look for the hepatitis one and say, “I know about you. I’ve been informed.”

Then the nurse will call me into the examining room, take my blood pressure, say, “Tsk tsk,” and put in an order for a new blood pressure monitor.

I sometimes wonder if too much public awareness isn’t more useful to and lucrative for the psycho-pharmacy industries’ investors? Just wondering.

There are so many things I already worry about. Aren’t we all surrounded by our own real life worries outside of the numerous public awareness commercials? Which I think have created in our society something I like to call the ‘Baby Seat Syndrome’. Which, in my mind, just means worrying to excess about dangers that statistically have less chance of happening to us than being hit by lightning.

Why, it’s hard to get through a day without my being aware that I’m doing wrong things all over the place. Let me give you an example. Let’s take a day from last week and discover how many times I did things that went against the consciousness-raising adverts.

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BUSTER AFTER A ROLL IN SNOW
In this example morning, I ate breakfast. It consisted of boiled eggs. Oh gosh, but haven’t I heard that eggs tank up your cholesterol and that’s not good, right? But I’ve also seen recent reports that said eggs are good for you, at least a few per week.

I also drank orange juice and swallowed some supplements. Oh dear. Orange juice, I’ve been informed, contains the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar or something ridiculous like that. And the supplements! Well, they’re not properly controlled, or may not have as much in them of what they say they have in them. Or they can cause all kinds of medical problems. Maybe hepatitis. Who knows?

But, I swallowed them anyway. The dangers be damned and the juice tasted delicious although I’ve heard that there may be less juice in the container than you think.

I ate toast which wasn’t gluten free and I put butter on it. Oh god, I’m going to get wheat belly, or already have it, or is that beer belly? What am I doing to myself? And butter! Well that’s almost a swear word for cholesterol and I drank tea, which we found out a few weeks ago is full of insecticides. However, we have switched to another kind of tea that is supposed to be insecticide free, but who knows?

I grabbed a bottle of water and felt guilty about the recycling thing and I’ve heard you can get cancer from the plastics they use. And I ate a banana, which I’ve heard is not as nutritious as you may think. I deliberately avoided looking into this claim, so I could remain comfortably uninformed.

I drove to town and polluted the atmosphere with non-carbon-taxed gasoline. Guilt! Guilt, because I believe we have to cut down on carbon.

I parked the truck and walked into an arena which had just had its ice flooded by an ice-making machine. Which apparently can leave residual gas fumes in the arena for a long time after it’s used. So I was skating to keep in shape, but maybe wrecking my lungs doing it. Oh, I forgot to mention asthma. I’ve heard tell about that too and I know it’s no fun.

Picture
FOREST CREATURE
In the grocery store I loaded up with a pile of poisons and poor dietary choices. For example: chocolate ice-cream. Oh help me, Lord! What am I doing to myself?  Too much salt, too much gluten, too much fat, too much sugar, etc., etc., etc., and that’s why I say the Lord’s Prayer before I grocery shop and will also, from time to time, sing a verse of ‘Nearer My God To Thee’.

I then had lunch at a tea shop. So many choices. All shouting, “Unhealthy! Unhealthy!”

“What would you like, sir?”

I whisper, “Our Father which art in Heaven——“I’ll have the ham and cheese sandwich.”

“On what kind of bun?”

I whisper, “...hallowed be thy name.”  I say, in a  trembling voice, “Sesame.” You see, I hadn’t heard anything bad about the actual sesame seeds although the buns are riddled with public health warnings.

“Would you like mayonnaise or butter or both?”

Oh god, not both for sure, but which one? Which one? I’m sure you see my predicament. I’m almost positive you’ve heard about Mr. Mayonnaise. Surely you have. What to do? What to do?  I chose butter. Why? It has fewer letters.

And I had another tea. Hoped it wasn’t the one with the bug killers in it.

“What size, sir?”

I ordered small. Paid for my lunch and then walked the tea cup over to the dispensary counter. I put a little milk in the tea, because, well, I’ll tell you in a minute, and I used milk because I thought cream was richer and therefore worse. And I used brown sugar instead of white sugar because white sugar has had the proverbial crap beaten out of it by public awareness officials.

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MIDDLE RIVER SNOW TURTLE
And what about the milk I mentioned adding to my tea? Which I was brought up on and I thought was good and which my mommy and daddy and also my teachers told me was an excellent dietary choice.

“Drink up your milk. IT’S GOOD FOR YOU. BUILDS UP YOUR BONES.”

Well, that was, apparently, stupid advice. Because I’ll tell you what a very intelligent person told me. This person was so smart and intelligent that she had to toss two thousand words from her vocabulary so she could talk to a verbal wretch like me.

This educated hepatitis-informed person told me, in all sincerity and good faith, that milk has been the greatest food fraud ever perpetrated upon mankind. I looked up the word, ‘perpetrated’ and was devastated. Then I looked up the word, ‘devastated’ and was filled with great anxiety. My gosh, to think how long I’d been duped. Hoodwinked while standing in my mother’s kitchen, after a hard day of play, swallowing down an ice-cold glass of milk. Tasting so good, feeling no guilt. Just a little uninformed kid with chocolate chips smeared all over his lips and fingers. Lies! All lies!

I said, “Hallowed be thy name,” before I carried out my next task, which was booking an appointment for my truck to get a safety certificate so I could pollute more air.

Picture
SNOW-SHOER DRESSED FOR COLD
Then I bought beer. Which I’ve been publicly educated to believe might be good for you in moderation, but might be bad for you morally. Or it might not be good for you at all, or you might be able to drink as much as you like and then become or not become an alcoholic and get or not get throat cancer to boot.

I then crossed myself before walking into another coffee shop. I’m a fool and a masochist. At this coffee shop I bought an iced coffee drink. Even though I’d been warned by a person in the know, that the machines that make the drinks aren’t always well maintained and can be filled with bacteria and bug nests, and the soaps they use to clean the machines, to get rid of the bad boy bugs, are cancer-producing and she would never drink that stuff because the friend who gave her this information used to work at a coffee shop and so she’d know.

I then headed home. Sucking the toxic drink through a straw, merrily carbonizing the atmosphere and looking at the beautiful forests on the gorgeous mountains, worrying that I was as bad as the clear-cutters. The scars they had left were visible to my eyes.  And maybe, while driving home, I might be crushing bugs and tiny critters under my toxic rubber winter tires, which have studs, which, I have been informed, are destroying the concrete, which will increase our taxes.

Later on, I sat down in the woodshed and drank some beer, while trying to ignore the fact that the woodshed was built with green pressed lumber, which apparently is toxic.

However, I’ve found if I have enough beer, I stop thinking about these public awareness things and begin to enjoy the world I was lucky enough to be born into. Won the lottery, so to speak. And I watch the birds, who seem to be unworried about the toxins in the sunflower seeds.  And I realize that the wasps, who are gone now, were the very least of my worries, unless, of course, I raise my public awareness about them, but I have no intention of doing that.

In summary, I realize that many of the awareness issues are important and all of them can affect the lives of some people. Sometimes in very tragic ways.

So, you can look at this blog in the spirit in which it was written, or as alternative news.

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TWO CROWS AND FREE SPEECH

***

“Nothing awakens and improves men so much as free communication of thoughts and feelings--If nothing reaches the people but what would lend support to men in power, farewell to liberty. The form of a free government may remain, but the life, the soul, the substance is fled.”
                                                                                                  William Ellery Channing

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SUNDAY BLIZZARD SNOW-SHOEING
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