Alright I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile. When Tony at Milkriver Blog responded to my tagging him with this Personal History Meme, he added additional questions and tagged me right back, the rat. If you’ve never visited Milkriver, make it a point to head on over. Tony must have an incredible amount of energy to pursue his many and varied interests, and find the time to write about them.
There are so many things to comment on on his meme post that I’m not even sure where to begin, actually I don’t think I’ll begin other than to say.. you’d love the Antarctic and the whales there, an incredible amount of them. I can’t imagine what it would have been like 100 years ago, before the whaling really began in earnest. Email me Tony if you’d like a recommendation on who to travel there with. And.. Cuba is much more than beauty, not much negative that I ran into. Warm people, highest literacy rate in the western world, a doctor for every 127 families (not on average, literally), certainly a lot of abject poverty; much of which could be eliminated if… ah never mind, no politics.
So… the answers
FIVE PET PEEVES
Well first of all, that sounds just a little too much like a high school yearbook, and I’m a pretty laid back kind of guy but I guess everyone has peeves
1) Intolerance. I grew up in a small rural town in Manitoba. There is an incredible dichotomy in small town life, welcoming and exclusionary at the same time. Nunavut is also a very small town, just incredibly spread out. Only 27,000 people live here, and it is amazing how small a place it can be. Just see how many people you run into at Iqaluit airport that you know. It also has a surprising amount of intolerance. Surprising coming from so many people who have experienced intolerance themselves. Before I give the wrong impression, we are no different than anywhere else, it is a minority, they just are vocal and cause people hurt.
2) Lawlessness. Gee that’s a surprise, given my background. I’m not talking about anarchy, rioting in the streets lawlessness, but the idea that you don’t need to follow that zoning bylaw, or helmet law, or a myriad of mundane laws, that they somehow don’t apply to you, that they are just for someone else.
4) Mis-numbering lists
3) Greed
5) The pettiness of politics. I think there is a better way, and I think it will never happen. We first have to scrap the party system of politics (I’m talking up here in the land of k.d. lang, Dennis Lee, Geddy Lee and Sir John A.. I don’t even want to get started on the two party system south of the border). Elect MP’s based on who is the best person in the constituency, let them decide on a PM by consensus, let them lobby for cabinet posts to a committee struck by the elected PM. Yeah I know…
FIVE WILD CRITTERS I’D LIKE TO SEE ONCE BEFORE I GO..
I’m going to assume that the key here is that they must be alive, in their natural environment.
1) A coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae)
2) In the same vein, a tubeworm
(Riftia pachyptila)
3) One of the Birds of Paradise (Paradisaeidae)
4) Eskimo Curlew (Numenius borealis)
5) Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis)
There, that ought to keep me busy.
FIVE MOMEN… Wait! Can I say Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis) too?
Okay sorry about that.
FIVE MOMENTS IN MY LIFE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING THAT I’VE DONE SINCE
Almost every moment changes everything that follows.. I know that that sounds trite but a decision to stop and have a coffee on a drive can impact where you are in any particular place in time, which can effect your life in unforeseen ways. Some people call it the butterfly effect, I don’t. But I think this is meant to be the big moments, the life altering ones. There are many, I’ll stick with the easy ones.
1) July 24, 2002. I was just watching the DVD of this moment actually. The arrival of Travis Matthew Alvin Avinga Evaluarjuk Kines into our lives. Two days old and already working on frequent flier points. He arrived from Iqaluit on the regularly scheduled jet, Leah’s cousin brought him back with her. I can not imagine my life with out him now and it is impossible to describe just how life altering this event is. How can your life not change while looking at an impossible tiny baby, who fits in to your strange and clumsy fingers, knowing that everything you do from here on in will have some effect on his life, and what kind of man he’ll turn out to be? Gawd but it is scary, wonderfully scary.
2) July 5, 1995. Sitting in the Doctors office with Janice in Saskatoon and hearing "Cancer". What followed is a journey that is far too personal for this space and which included the hardest moment I’ve ever had to face in my lifetime.
3) July 1, 1987. An excellent example of just how life changing the mundane details of life can be. Janice, who was teaching French Immersion in Thompson Manitoba at the time, had just bought the first new car of her life (a 1987 Chev Sprint Turbo). Now normally, at the end of the school year, she bolted from town, but alas her new pride and joy broke down and needed a part that was nine days in coming. I was picked up at the train station by a friend after camping, canoeing and looking for a place to build a cabin in the wilds near Thicket Portage MB. Friend says, "you need a shower, we’re going to the bar". I go to the bar, Janice is there with friends, we meet, end up driving around all night talking, I fall in love. I still own that car, but I guess I’ve decided to donate it to the Kidney Foundation (although judging by my procrastination I still am having a hard time parting with it)
4) February 8, 2000. I had just finished up a lengthy day in court, working into the evening. I was one of the last people to leave the gym (where court is held when it gets to town), and as I was walking out I noticed that Leah and her mom hanging out in the lobby. Now Leah always had a smile for me, and, strangely enough, I notice when a strikingly beautiful woman smiles at me a lot. As I said "hi", I added "You should come over for tea sometime". To my surprise, without saying a word she got up and followed me out to the truck. So we had tea, and two nights later we rented a movie, and were soon madly in love. Because of our many differences, including cultural and a significant age difference, many people don’t "get" us, and that’s okay. We get it, and that is all that matters. (and she is going to kill me for writing this as she doesn’t like me writing about her)
5) I don’t know, there are so many. Perhaps one that kind of altered my way of seeing my actions, or rather the effect my actions could have. Some time in 1993-1994. A good friend of mine in La Ronge has the most amazing, inspiring life story. She’s had a horrific childhood and youth. Without going into a lot of detail, she suffered sexual abuse, physical abuse (including a broken arm), running away (by airplane), life on the street, drug and alcohol abuse, and brushes with suicide. She is the most upbeat person you’ll ever meet. At the time she had an intense desire to become a member of the RCMP, and I always ask people interested in that why they want to join the RCMP. Instead of the usual answers (You know.. help people.. good career… drive fast and carry a gun) her answer surprised me. She told me "You know Clare when all this stuff was happening to me, a mountie came into our community. When he saw me he smiled at me and patted me on my head (she couldn’t speak english at the time). It seemed like no one had ever been that kind to me. I wanted to be like that". Here was a fellow, who to this day, will have no idea just what kind of effect he’s had on a terrific person’s life, just because of his simple gesture.
FIVE MOVIES THAT ARE MY LIFE
Okay, if Tony intended that these are movies that mirror my life, there are none. I’m sorry I live far too boring (and paradoxically, far too interesting) a life for anything in the movies. Well except perhaps for Dumb and Dumber. Mind you there have been car chases, shootings and explosions. Maybe it needs a soundtrack.
If he intended it to be five movies I wouldn’t want to live without, that is only marginally easier. The first one is easy…
1) Casablanca. Far and away the greatest movie ever made. I could watch it over and over and wish I had Rick’s moral fortitude all the time. Ersatz war movie, love story, action, art and all the great lines you could possibly hope for from a movie. What more could you possibly want.
Everything else that follows is just candy…
2) Okay I guess you’d need a war movie. Mine would be Gallipoli. My grandfather’s regiment’s (The 16th Canadian Scottish) battle honours include The Battle of Gallipoli, and even though he wasn’t there that just adds icing to the cake of a very good movie.
3) Hmm. This is hard (and I took the easy route). A love story… Four Weddings and A Funeral.
4) Action. Master and Commander. A training film for our Northwest Passage trip.
5) How about a duster? Silverado. Out dusts the classic dusters.
That’s them, five I’d take to a desert island. Choices would change tomorrow, except number one.
FIVE TO TAG.
Man, people are going to stop reading me if I keep tagging them. Same five as the original part of this meme, Tony G at Milkriver Blog, Cindy at Woodsong, Mike at 10,000 Birds, Pamela at Thomasburg Walks and Brian at Taming of the Band-aid.
Comments
2 responses
perfect, perfect . . .
i guess i didn’t mean for it to be gutwrenching, but i WAS interested in how people got to where they are . . .
i have my answers, but am still waiting for ALL those i tagged to respond.
and thanks for your answers and for passing this on . . .
tg
p.s. i have a good friend who leads tours to the antarctic twice a year . . . i just have to win the lottery!
what a moving post Clare- my eyes filled with tears many times, particularly regarding the young girl who wanted to be ‘just like that’. I could relate all too well. Small acts of kindness do make a difference- they sometimes save a life.
You have such a generous heart & positive attitude.. and after such a profound loss I’m happy you’ve found joy again.
(I should have just pretended I didn’t read this so I could ignore this tag! LOL)