Larry Gibbons
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life and death themes

7/7/2016

1 Comment

 
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Baby Evening Grosbeak on our Deck
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine passed away. Terry Phliger, who lived in Michigan, died only days from his 69th birthday and only hours before his scheduled resettlement in Ontario.
PictureTerry Phliger--R.I.P.
Terry was an artist, professor, humourist, practical joker, story-teller and a compassionate and highly intelligent human being. His mind and spirit were powerful, which was obvious in all he did and said. He was also a person who continually encouraged me, whether in my personal life or in my creative one. His humour and laser-sharp, insightful responses would usually leave me chuckling and encouraged, while sending my problems fleeing to some decrepit corner, where, safe from Terry’s iron-clad diagnosis, they could sulk and suck their miserable thumbs away.

I’ll miss Terry. As astute a man as I have ever known and one who, I’m sure, if there is an afterlife, is already planning some heavenly prank or is busily becoming a pain in the devil’s ass.

“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.”
                                                              H.D. Thoreau, Thoreau On Man & Nature

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Larry, Grace and Sue on our Knotty Pines Patio in Ingonish
Maritime Mac, who likes to hang around train stations, was hanging around the front door of the Truro train station one grey, humid day . He was there because he had to drive a friend to the station.

While hanging out by the heavy doors he also enjoyed the delicious odour of Murphy’s Sea Food which drifted around the corner and into Maritime’s nose.

Three young lads approached on their bicycles. The oldest boy might have been twelve while the other two were younger. Maritime only heard part of the conversation and he didn’t hear the names of these characters, nor that of the character they were talking about, but what he did hear made his loitering worthwhile.

I’m going to make up the names, all for the sake of security and quality, so you can enjoy the conversation.

“Tod kissed Rebecca,” one boy said.

“I’m going to kiss her,” said the second little boy.

“You already kissed her. It’s my turn to get one,” responded the third little fella.

Then the three cycling smooch bandits rolled on down the concrete plaza sidewalk and out of Maritime’s life. Leaving Maritime Mac chuckling and with a wee story he knew he’d just have to tell to some Cape Bretoner when he got back to the mountains.
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Sue, Grace and Buster enjoying a morning walk in Ingonish
***
And now a brief note to Marianne. Never fear, I have been keeping my eyes open for the angelica plant and have already filled two big plastic bags with their shrivelled up bodies. I think, however, now that I recognize what they look like in their infancy, that next year, I’ll walk my grounds in the early spring and pull them up when they’re in their babyhood.

Thought you’d like to know.
***
I think comments on the language in my book, ‘White Eyes’ are a good example of democracy at work. For every person who doesn’t like the swear words in my book, there is at least one other who doesn’t mind those nasty words or may even find them cathartic.

I’ve mentioned this profanity issue in another blog, but because it has been brought up again and because I try to respond to comments from folks who read my blog, I’m discussing it here, once again.

I think profanity can make the dialogue in a story more authentic and not too sugary sweet, when used appropriately. However, the longer I continue to write, the more careful I am about when and when not to use these big-bad-wolf words.

The strange thing is, I don’t, for the most part, swear. However, when I’m writing, and I have the dialogue bouncing around in my mind, the words are there and I simply type them out. Later on I may edit out some of the little buggers.

My hope is that folks who don’t swear, can read through, over or under the words and still enjoy the stories.

Like the fella who read my book and then congratulated me on capturing the insanity in this world. I appreciated his kind words. He’d apparently found this theme in my stories and as in many stories in many books, the messages aren’t always so easy to discover.
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Moon Peering Through the Trees

“The voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It comes from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer which has nothing private in it: that which he does not know; that which flowed out of his constitution and not from his too active invention; that which is the study of a single artist you might not easily find, but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit of them all.”

                                                                         Emerson, Selected Essays

One thing I’m trying to say through my stories, is that we aren’t as important as we think we are. Our actions, philosophy and status on this small, rotating, egg-shaped ball of immense diversity, aren’t as solid, momentous, or as superior to ‘the others’ as we believe they are. Intrinsically believing that an idea or opinion is rock solid does not prove anything.

HOWEVER, BEWARE! Our creative muses, like wind or spirit, once tamed or fully understood, lose their power. Sort of like when Delilah cut off Samson’s long hair. He couldn’t pull down a pillar, a post or a two-by-four and maybe that’s why, in the original Hebrew, the word God was written without vowels. Impossible to utter and therefore out of our taming and diminishment-of-awe reach.

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Heavy Mist at Ingonish
Anyway, no matter how I try to convey it, I’m really not very good at verbally expressing what touches and affects my soul. That’s why I write stories.
***
When ‘White Eyes’ first came out, I found myself walking around town with my head down as I waited for the criticism - negative and/or positive - to begin. I found that both kinds of appraisals filled me with all kinds of emotions and often not the feelings I expected.

Not too long after ‘White Eyes’ was published, I was walking along the lake shore in Baddeck. It was only a few days until Christmas and the snow hadn’t yet come to Baddeck with any vengeance. While hiking along the shoreline I came upon a  friend who was sitting in his vehicle, looking out over the lake, teary-eyed. Not because of having read my book, but because the memories Christmas brought to him were stirring his heart.

We chatted and, at one point, he told me he’d read one of my stories.

Then he said, “I didn’t like it.”

He apologized for not liking it.


I told him not to apologize, because I took negative criticism better than positive. Maybe I’m more used to it, I don’t know. But funnily enough, he has since become one of my best ‘White Eyes’ promoters. However,  I found his negative criticism easier to handle coming from a non-Aboriginal than the accolades coming from non-Aboriginals. At least during the first year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I genuinely appreciated receiving positive comments from non-Aboriginal folks. However, what I really needed was to hear the Aboriginals respond positively to ‘White Eyes’ and therefore, being congratulated by non-Aboriginals would often cause me to feel, at some level, emotions of guilt and sadness, even though I appreciated their kind, supportive words.

I think it was because I knew that the stories only existed because I’d had the chance to spend time with the Aboriginals. Therefore, I needed to know what the Aboriginals thought about my book. Because, if I didn’t hear positives from them, then I knew I’d feel like just another exploiter, as so many White people were before me.

‘White Eyes’ wouldn’t have existed had I not been able to live in their community, taste their food, drink their drinks, experience their customs, share in their joy, feel their pain, be sad when they were sad, laugh at their humour and a whole lot more that I will probably never be able to properly represent. 
That’s why, on the first page of ‘White Eyes’, you can find an appropriate verse which is taken from the Bible. “I was a stranger and you took me in.” Matthew 25:35
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One cold night, a Native fella and his daughter dropped around to pick up some toilet paper. Notice I didn’t say borrow toilet paper, for obvious reasons.

It was after midnight. The Aboriginal fella’s daughter, about twelve years of age or so, picked up a copy of my book from the coffee table. She opened it, quietly read a little bit, looked up and then told me she liked the book, specially when it talked about eagles and she told me all her friends were passing the book around and enjoying it.

That was the best critique I could hear. And then as time went on and other Aboriginals commented on White Eyes, I came to realize that the Aboriginal folks around here enjoyed the fact these stories were written about them. They found the stories funny and ‘White Eyes’ had also allowed the non-Aboriginal world to take notice.

Also, many of them visualized me as being the main character in most of the stories. One fella talked about when I fell under a truck in the story called, ‘Mountain Iris Spirits’. It wasn’t really me and that specific incident never happened to anybody I knew. It was made up. However, I did get my thumb wrapped up in a rope as a load of logs shifted on the back of a wagon.

I may, from time to time, include in my blog the beginning of one of my stories. Just a page or two, in the hope that it may whet the appetite of some blog readers to read ‘White Eyes’.

Oh, and many of you might be wondering what bits of Busterness Buster is up to. A lot, so stay tuned. I’m sure you’ll hear more about Buster, but for now, please read the first very small section from one of my stories in ‘White Eyes’.

MOUNTAIN IRIS SPIRITS
We were up on Owl Mountain.  Both of us frustrated up to our yin yangs with Denise’s extended family. We live with them, on the reserve, in the family home. Three bedrooms and fourteen people. Us sleeping on the living room floor. Everybody else sleeping in bedrooms, except for Uncle Charlie who, with his fat tabby cat, slumbers half his day away in a tent on the front porch. Denise’s ex moved in last month and Denise gave him our small basement bedroom. A piss-off but she felt sorry for him. Red alert to our relationship, as we couldn’t sleep or do anything personal until the last member of the family had decided to turn off the television. Phony anger fits and antics were on almost the whole goddamn night, and in the morning we’d awaken, our eyes swollen from lack of sleep, to find the kids dripping their breakfast all over our bed sheets while they watched cartoons, or tiny Tod-alias Batman during the day-soaking us in everything from thirty-five S.P.F. sunscreen lotion to his cereal milk.

According to Denise, this mountain we had retreated to is also the home of spirits. She said they were everywhere, but today it was quiet and peaceful, as a bald eagle circled over the spruce forest. I hadn’t seen many eagles in Ontario but there sure were a lot of them in this part of Cape Breton.

“My stomach’s all jittery. Means there’s spirits hanging around,” Denise said.

“I get that with a hangover.” I laughed. She didn’t.

“Yeah, right. Most of you white people couldn’t see the spirits if they were plastered to your nose.” She swept her long black hair up into the mountain air, looking like an ancient mountain fairy queen.

“Maybe I can. I’m just not around people who talk about them all the time. You’ve been drenched in ghost talk. People always going on about spirits. Everywhere. Cripes, your sister ties her blankets down so the ghost won’t yank them off her bed, and you’re always hearing about somebody finding Mary or Jesus or some saint on a window or somebody’s toilet seat.”

I was sounding skeptical. Denise didn’t care for skepticism.———-

***
There, that wasn’t so painful, was it?

Thanks for reading my blog and you all take care.
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1 Comment

If I Die Before I Wake...

14/8/2015

0 Comments

 
Two of our friends from Picton, Ontario have been visiting us. Now the point I want to make, other than the fact that we're very happy that these two friends are visiting us, is that one of them is named in my will.

So, what’s he doing in my will, you might ask? Well, he has, in my will, been legally proclaimed the person who is to manage all of my writing output if I should bite the bullet, kick the bucket, or go tits up before he does.

Which might sound a tad pretentious. I mean that I consider my writing good enough to require the involvement of legal entities. That I should presume, not only that I am a writer, but that if I kiss the hammer, my writing should be baby-sat until it can be spread around the world like a newly discovered religious scroll.

But, it is what it is, what it is. So, if I die before you wake, be sure to quake knowing that this blog for example, might be shining forth and forth and forth but never fifth.

(PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE BEEN SWALLOWING A LOT OF ASPIRIN AND ANTIBIOTICS LATELY, DUE TO A SERIOUS TOOTHACHE)
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It should also be mentioned that Sue is my biggest supporter.  It is in her genes to be a teacher and an enabler.  So one might view her idea of having the managing of my writing put into a will, with a caretaker and everything, as a very, very smart notion, if one of your goals is to give yours truly a feeling of confidence and a sense that he is doing something worthwhile. How many writers battle with those two issues?

Last Sunday, our friend and my wordsmith babysitter after I am mort, proved he was the right choice.    You see, when they arrived at our little trailer, they showed up with a box of books for us. One of the books was Alistair MacLeod’s novel, “No Great Mischief”. A wonderful story and the only novel Alistair MacLeod wrote.

Anyway, our friend had bookmarked, using an actual, old-fashioned bookmark, the last chapter of ‘No Great Mischief’. 
He had read and enjoyed the book, even though, as he told us, there were a few times when he’d wanted to close its covers and not finish the novel. However, he hadn’t. He’d finished the book and then bookmarked its last chapter.  He’d suggested we re-read the book and that we should read the last chapter first. Apparently, the chapter had really affected my writing preserver and conservator.

He then made another suggestion, late into the afternoon, when our August summer was still in full bloom. (This meaning that the sun was hidden from view and the rain was just beginning to give our ground another good soaker, which it continued to do all evening and as of 1:42 am, it was still drooling all over our property.)

Anyway, he asked us if we would mind listening to him read the last chapter. Which kind of mind-boggled me, as people who drop into our little trailer don’t usually suggest reading anything to us. Except for a few who may be trying to sneak us through the pearly gates by reading to us a selection from their particular religious map.


Well sir, he began to read. He read the whole last chapter and what happened near the end of his reading confirmed in my mind, that this man was indeed the right person to preserve and conserve my writing.

Because, you see, our friend could barely finish reading aloud the last chapter of Alistair MacLeod’s book, “No Great Mischief”. He began to tear up, had to stop several times, and when he had finished reading it, he had to grab a tissue from a box Sue keeps on the back of the couch, in case we have to blow our nose or we need to stuff the tissue box under our open window to avoid bashing our heads on the window’s sharp edge.

Observing his reaction to MacLeod's story was proof. Proof that he was the ‘right person’ to look after my precious writing output if I should happen to knock off before he does.   And, as a matter of interest, he is two weeks older than I am, so we might need some flexibility in this will thing!
***
Previously, I mentioned that I am suffering from a tooth-ache. Poor me, but this tooth-ache taught me another lesson as to why we love living in Cape Breton.

A few months ago, pain drove Sue to trying to make an appointment for an emergency get-together with her dentist. Because we were in town, we simply drove to his office, where Sue planned to walk in, while gripping the side of her face and looking like she was in a great deal of pain, which she was, to hit the receptionist up for a quick appointment.

However, when we got to the dentist’s office, the door was locked, as he didn’t work that day. We then asked somebody if they knew where the other dentist was located. Baddeck has two dentists.

We found out and then drove there. Sue went in and the dentist looked at Sue once he had finished with his regular patients. He gave her a prescription and told her to make an appointment with our dentist when she had finished the pills.

He then said, “Why didn’t you phone your dentist at home?”

What?! We’re from southern Ontario. The preserve it, conserve it province. You don’t just go phoning your dentist at home when you want to. Come on.

However, last week I found out, when I went to my dentist’s office with my sore tooth, that my dentist was taking a holiday and wouldn’t be back in the office until the following week. Which actually gave me a little relief, because I don’t much like dentists. I mean in a dentist sense, not a human being sense.

Anyway, I thought, okay, I can deal with the pain. But, as I was shivering and rolling in my bed at four am the next morning because of the pain and the fever, I thought I'd better try phoning him at home. Good luck, I thought.

So, the next morning, after taking Buster for his pee and poo-poo walk, I did phone my dentist. Oh, Sue and I did have a discussion about whether I should phone before or at nine am. It was bad enough, I thought, to be phoning our dentist at home, but before 9 am... come on!

I phoned about 8:30 am. Figured it was a compromise.

The phone rang about six times. I’m thinking, he’s not even at home, Then he answered my call, hallelujah, glory to the great dentist in the sky! He answered and when I told him who I was and why I was calling and apologized all over myself for phoning him at home, he told me, no problem. He said this to me in such a way that I knew it really was no problem. It was expected that we call him at home if it was an emergency and he wasn’t in the office. 

We even chatted about my tooth. Not just the bare bone specifics, but non-important specifics which were taking up his dentist/holiday time. And we talked about boating and sailing and the weather. My lord, would wonders never cease?

So, off I went to his office to have my tooth extracted.  And today, at around two am, I noticed the antibiotics are starting to work. I wa
s so happy about this that I couldn’t go nigh-nigh.  So I got up and decided to write this blog in celebration.  The poor souls in medieval Germany didn't have such luck, it seems!
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***
Last Sunday, BT, but still in the year of our Lord, (with the BT standing for ‘Before Toothache’), my friend and I hiked the Skyline Trail. It is a gorgeous trail. Both times we have hiked the trail in the evening. Whereupon, we wait until the sun has set below the earth’s horizon before we hike back out.

And, as we did the last time, we saw a moose as we were hiking out. Actually, I saw a moose’s butt. And not as clearly as did the tourists from Toronto, who were much younger than I am. Which made me realize I am much older than they are, but maybe closer to the spiritual feeling my friend and I get when we are there. Might this gorgeous setting be a heavenly launching pad for older guys who can barely see a barn door let alone a moose’s arse?
Skyline Trail
Larry on Skyline Trail
Anyway, we were peppered with comments from out-of-province and/or country hikers. Who, once discovering we were Cape Bretoners, would tell us how gorgeous the view was and ask us questions about Cape Breton.  One couple from Ottawa told us they’d been all around the world and had not seen any place as gorgeous as what they were viewing on the Skyline Trail.
I kind of needed to hear this, as I had just recently returned from Ontario. Where I’d visited my family and friends and of course, missed them, when once again, I left them behind to return to our tiny forty-five-foot trailer in the woods.

As we were loading our stuff into the back of the car, my friend said, “Hearing all the nice things we’ve heard from the tourists today, makes me feel that my decision to move to Cape Breton was a good one.”

All I can say to that is ditto, ditto.
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Tourist Enjoying Sunset on Skyline Trail
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A Two-Point Dunk

22/7/2015

3 Comments

 
Sorry my blog is late. I just returned from Ontario, where I visited and visited and visited. Had loads of fun and interaction and the time spent was certainly important for keeping the bonds with my family and friends strong and true. But Whew!

I think I just wrote a poem
...
***
Oh, and a special news flash. My friend George is back in Cape Breton, primed and ready to absorb some more Cape Breton beauty, hospitality and down-home common sense. Why, he even apologized for not talking much when we were having supper at “The Lakes” Restaurant last night. He explained that the red wine and the gorgeous scenery he was observing through the window had left him spell-bound. We understood, totally.
George
George preparing for the long trip to Cape Breton
***
In a recent blog, I wrote about my experiences with panhandlers in an Ontario city. I mentioned one man to whom I gave some money on a dreary Thanksgiving Sunday. The important point I was trying to emphasize was that when I offered the man more money on a later occasion, he turned it down. He also thanked me for the money I had given him, and then told me he had bought groceries with the lucre.

Well, I met him again on this last trip. I think he was doing his garbage picking rounds. I also was more aware this time, that he was missing most of his teeth.  Anyway, we exchanged pleasantries and then I asked him if he was okay for money. He told me that he would get his pension cheque at the end of the month.

We parted with both of us having our dignity intact.
***
Like most little kids, my two grandchildren have their battles, their jealousies and their competitions.  One evening, I was in their ‘WRECK’ room, where there are a zillion toys which I would have salivated over and died for when I was a child.  Standing fairly prominently in the room full of indestructible chairs, dinky toys, stuffed this and thats, zappers and clappers and whatnots, is one mother of a toy crane. Which I think was put together by my grandson, Carter. Carter could take a box of broken up corn flakes and put them together. And even if he couldn’t reassemble them into their original corn flake shape, he could invent a new cereal shape out of them.

This large, possibly Lego toy concoction even has a remote with it. The grandchildren like to get the crane swinging this way and that way and it can pick up objects and might even be able to break-dance to the music of Billy the Singing Lobster.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that it would have been a blow-my-mind toy if it had been in my boyish life. For that matter, it is now.

On one of my visits, my elder grandson, Carter, was playing with this crane. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Callum, was trying to find something to do. One choice he had in mind, I’m sure, was to disrupt whatever Carter was doing.

Anyway, during this Mayberry moment, I’d grabbed my son’s guitar. I began to tune it and then did a little amateurish finger picking. Which attracted Callum. Offered him a possible activity. So he took an interest in what I was doing. Even reached out and did some strumming of his own.

Obviously, the older grandson took note of this. Saw that I was taking an interest in his brother. Wasn’t possibly paying as much attention to him as I should be. So, it must have put him beyond the pale of self-control when Callum was allowed to strum the guitar all by himself, while receiving my total attention.

The attack came without warning. A Carter blitzkrieg. One minute Callum and I were talking and sharing a moment with the acoustic guitar and then, in the blink of an eye, I was in darkness.

Was I having a stroke? Was I going blind? No. What I was experiencing was having my head tucked nicely inside the confines of a wastepaper basket. Which Carter had expertly jammed over my head.

Thus sayeth the Lord, “Stop taking an interest in my younger brother and pay attention to me or there will be more to come.”  Brotherly love comes with its own dangers.

I’ll end this story with the observation that my son and daughter-in-law are two great parents. Why, the waste-paper basket was even empty when it was thunked down over my noggin. That was some sort of blessing.

            “There was a child went forth every day,
             And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
             And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
             Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.”
                                Walter Whitman, There Was A Child Went Forth
 
Grandchildren
The Elder Setting up the Younger, Perhaps?
***
Do you know why I got a bargain price on my hotel room? Because of Buster, our small pooch.

When I arrived at the check-in desk the receptionist asked me if I’d brought Buster with me. I told her he was at home, but promised to make some prints of pictures of Buster and give them to her. Which I did, a few days later.

The receptionist said, “It was so funny when you asked me to put you through to Buster’s room.”  

I’d asked that when I had phoned our room the last time we were all here.

“You knew who he was, too,” I said. We both had a good guffaw. Maybe two guffaws.

Anyway, as she was booking me in she told me she was going to give me a special rate. She then gave me a lower daily rate than normal and not only that, but gave me the same low rate for the peak weekend days when the prices go up.

So, do you see what I mean when I say that Buster got me a discount on the price of my hotel room?

                 “If you can uncomplaining spend the day
                  In solitude and when it ends
                  Greet those who finally return to play
                  As long lost friends
                  And if digging, without damage to a single rose
                  You find your long lost bone on which to sup
                  You’ll have acquired a hound’s discerning nose
                  And - what is more - you’ll be a dog, my pup!”
                                                                Lily Tuck, Sniff
Canine Leafs Fan
Buster is a Leafs Fan, of Course!
Cape Breton misty morning
Early Misty Morning in Cape Breton
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