Best Columnist in Quebec!

Pretty in pink - flowers from my garden

This week's video:   irresistible-existential-french-cat-funny-video


I'm very pleased indeed to announce that I have won the Best Columnist  
in Quebec by the QCNA.

I'd like to express my gratitude for all those concerned and most
particularly the ones who make their way through my
convoluted humour and indulgent rants. Perhaps you all deserve the
award ? Thank yous always to my editor Lily Ryan and the West Quebec
Post. Illness alas prevented me from attending the gala but i imagine
it was a sight to behold! That's not what caused the riots is it?

This week's piece:

Oh the blackfly! The blackfly! Such discussions these days. I thought
I'd add to the ditties and poetry. Have a great week everyone!

The Black-Fly Effect

Now when Christopher Columbus supposedly “discovered” America, he is
said to have remarked that he had, through Divine guidance, found
Paradise itself. From this we can only conclude one thing: the man did
not arrive in the Gatineau Hills during black fly season. Had that been
the case, we in North America might never have gone on to establish
settlements nor invent the automobile and its insatiable need for fuel,
the price of which is presently making us all cranky leading some of us
into futile random driving patterns searching for a cheap gas station
thereby defeating the whole purpose of saving money on gas inevitably
leading us all to sit morosely on the back deck wondering if we’ll ever
be able to retire to a recreational vehicle for a grand tour of the
Grand Canyon before we get too old and crotchety.

This whole scenario is typical of the black fly.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the price of gas
has nothing whatsoever to do with the black fly and cannot, in fact, be
blamed on the black fly which, being small, stout-bodied and
hump-backed with broad wings and short legs, should be in fact, much
more pitied than blamed. Don’t be silly. There are 1250 species of
black flies in the world and 110 of them can be found in Canada alone.
But here in North America, not one of the bloody things showed up long
enough to send Columbus back from whence he came convinced he had
discovered hell rather than paradise.  This is because black flies,
being nefarious, will only show up when you are sitting morosely on the
back deck bemoaning the price of gas. I think its because they prefer
blood on the bitter side and have been known to avoid all happy people
just as a matter of course. That is just my theory which has not yet
been put to the test because the number of raving-eyed positive
thinkers who have read “The Secret” are becoming few and far between
given the state of the world today and the impending invasion of Iran,
so I’ve not been able to gather together enough of them in the back
yard during black fly season to test my theory. Alas.

This of course, is what I was thinking when I went out to the garden
just last week to look at the dog-strangling vine which is insufferably
lush this year. Much like the black fly.

We know that this is the worst season for black flies since 1971
because we have scientists who study such things for a living. They
know things that we don’t know… For example, in Algonquin Park maximum
attack rates of the black fly Simulium venustum on humans, in June,
have been recorded at 78 flies/6.5 sq.cm. of skin/min (landing rate)
and 17 flies/6.5 sq.cm./min (biting rate). The mind boggles. This is
precisely why I’ve established my Society for Protection and
Preservation of Scientists whose sole purpose is to teach Scientists
needlepoint who, given that the entire free world is being held hostage
to high gas prices, could actually do something more constructive than
standing in a field near a pool of water wearing a dark-coloured thong
and perfume in order to commune with black flies. Unless of course,
they happen to be young good-looking Spanish scientists, in which case
something constructive could come of it, as long as I have my
binoculars and a large net. However, I digress.

Save blood and gas. Don’t go out.

#the bitter twitter of my discontent#

Dark and Stormy Night / Photograph


Video feature this week. Mrs. Brown’s dog is very old and unwell.
The kids are trying to figure out a way to tell her that its time to put the dog down.


http://www.youtube.com/embed/U430rpfjIIQ



This is the bitter twitter of my discontent or
My, that’s a lot of bullshit in your hashtag or
I do not tweet therefore I am

Goodbye cruel world! On this dark and stormy night I have now concluded
I do not want to live in a twitter world.

I am simply going to have to do myself in, at least metaphorically. I
do not want to read 140 characters or less made up of little pretend
words of little value mostly by intellectually truncated minds.  (Even
if they weren’t intellectually truncated minds, there is no way of
knowing that in the twitter world.) I do not want to read vacuous and
insipid words that intrude on the poetry and prose of life as it is
lived.

Now the reason I know this is because I entered a twitter contest with
CBC. It took me three hours but I finally figured out how to use
twitter on my archaic computer, which is precisely why I was entering
the contest to win an iPad. (I live in fear of a dying computer.)  I
spent Valentine’s Day writing tweets for a Dear John break-up contest.
After submitting 46 tweets in 10 hours (and ghastly ones at that) I’d
pretty much figured out that I hated the damn thing with a passion. If
I could have written a break-up tweet for twitter I’m sure I would have
won hands down.

Not only was I horrified by this method of communicating. I was
horrified by the reality that this was a writing contest championed by
CBC long held as a guardian of Canadian literature. Using twitter as a
means to literary expression is like using Tupperware to serve caviar,
or wearing rubber gloves to accept an Oscar. I figure eventually if you
use Tupperware and rubber gloves you’re going to end up with baloney
and a plastic Barbie doll. One follows the other sure as night follows
day. It’s just a matter of time and evolution. But mostly I was
horrified to learn that this is what “people out there” are doing for a
good part of their day. This is what people at bus stops and in cars,
and restaurants and pretty much everywhere are doing. They are
tweeting.

There is a reason why engineers and IT experts are not in charge of
culture. I believe, with all due respect because to each his own,
engineers and IT experts, much like accountants are tidy people who
stem the anxiety of existence by creating predictability at all costs.
But then, life is not black and white input with immediate predictable
outcomes. Life has always been noisy and messy and ambiguous, full of
unanswered questions, innuendo, and subtleties conveyed in spoken
words, gestures, facial expressions and sprawling brawling torment
and/or ecstasy on the written page. Life is the waiting and the reward.
Life is pondering and musing. Life is sometimes soliloquy. And we have
handed over what makes us human to engineers and IT experts who have
chained us to little boxes in our hands. They are literally changing
our brains.

Are we now to live our life like newspaper captions and headlines? Are
lives now measured by the quantity and quality of #hashtags in our
repertoire? Where are the minds that would protest such brutality to
the human spirit? For godssakes!!! I’ll tell you where the guardians of
our culture are: they are on their twitter accounts pretending to be
cutting edge mavericks of a new-age revolution in words. They are
trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and all they’ve got to
work with is a bit of hair and grizzle. There are no watchdogs for
culture; there are only people who strive to invent culture where
culture is not. Twitter is a culture of non-culture. It is not a means
to creating culture either. At best it is a sad indictment of human
progress. At worst it is nothing more than minds with small ideas of
everyday convenience, tidbit newstories, and gossip that no longer know
how to explore the grand ideas. They are looking at the wrappers
instead of the contents. They are the dust jackets to a Tolstoy novel.

Of course I will not do myself in. I’m afraid that everyone will be
around my deathbed tweeting. I do not want to be a #dying hashtag.
Mostly I do not want to know that at my funeral someone is tweeting
about when the funeral is over.

By the way, or BTW for those so inclined, the break-up line that won
the CBC contest was “My, that’s a lot of Timbits in your mouth… “ I am
delighted for the person who won even as I am oddly comforted by the
fact that I have no idea why this won. I am even comforted by the fact
that I didn’t win because I don’t even know what an iPad does. Having
looked at it now after the fact I realize it doesn’t even resemble my
old faithful computer with a real keyboard. I think you’re supposed to
use it to tweet. Thankfully I write. I don’t tweet.

Sigh.

Dang it! Dang it!

Well doesn't that rattle your clavicle! Alas, my browser requiring a better computer is no longer supported. I'm working on it!

Jive Talking Janus

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG WILL CONTINUE IN APRIL. I AM ON A BREAK RIGHT NOW.

















The Storm / 26 x 20 / Oil on canvas / SOLD

Video feature this week involves flying books in a charming award winning video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adzywe9xeIU


This piece was published in the West Quebec Post in 2011.

Jive-talking Janus

“George,” I said to Himself who was firmly ensconced in the Big Chair with the TV remote decidedly pointed towards the television. “George, I do not want to watch a documentary on two-headed babies.”

“But it’s interesting!” said Himself looking at me in astonishment as if I’d sprouted two-heads.

“What is interesting about watching the misery of people being born with two-heads? This is voyeurism of the worst order and the last refuge of a ratings-challenged television broadcast station that appeals only to the worst of human nature. People’s pain on parade! Barnum and Bailey banality! There is something sinister and unsettling about all this. It is as if we must either be people with two-heads or people without any insight or life whatsoever who watch people with two-heads on television.”

“Why,” he asked “do you have to create a black and white situation as if there were no greys?”

“There are only two types of people in the world,” I said emphatically. “People who have two heads and people who watch documentaries on people with two heads. There are no other categories. If you sat the entire world down and asked them if they would watch a documentary on two-headed babies, the only ones who wouldn’t would be two-headed.”

“So, you then are two-headed,” he said.

“I,” I said bristling like a porcupine in a windswept tree in January, “am discussing the metaphorical sense of the word. I am everyone and everyone is me. We are all two-headed. We are the world. We are the people.”

“Breaking into song is not going to convince me,” said Himself.

“The point is that,” I said, “people who watch shows on two-headed babies, or “Intervention” or David-Suzuki’s-we’re-all-going-to-die-horribly-and-don’t-we-feel-guilty-about-it-all-for-creating-the-mess-we’re-in-from-our-selfish-blind-sided-exploitation-of-Mother-Earth documentaries have taken people to their lowest form of self-expression. By watching documentaries on two-headed babies they identify themselves as NOT two-headed babies and subconsciously revel in their non-two-headedness. It’s not like they are going to go out there and change the world for two-headed babies. The number of them that actually would is so small it’s negligible. So what are you left with then? Pure voyeurism. It just gives them something to talk about at the water cooler.”

“You are being unkind to all two-headed babies,” said Himself.

“The ones who do not watch documentaries on two-headed babies do not gain their identity by voyeurism on the misery of others but actually have an internal life wherein they develop a sense of identity through actual thought and action. David Suzuki for example would be the kind with two heads and would probably never watch his own documentaries, which he makes purely for the infinitesimally small percentage that might actually do something.”

“How do you think people become people who change the world?” exclaimed George. “They watch documentaries. And did you think of the fact that actual two-headed babies can watch documentaries about two-headed babies adding a whole new type to your interesting but very very weak argument.”

“As usual, you are being ridiculous.” I said.

He wasn’t listening anymore as he had another thought leaping to his lips like a grasshopper on a blade of grass. “And what if one of the two heads liked it and one didn’t? What then?” he asked, beaming like a canary that swallowed a cat. “Could one two-headed baby have one head and the other one have two, a metaphorical one I mean? Is that then a three-headed baby? Where do they fit in?”

“For some strange reason I don’t think any, let alone two-headed, babies would be watching television. But never mind all that. The whole point is, we have now discussed this for exactly fifteen minutes and the documentary segment on two-headed babies is now over so I have won the argument because not watching the documentary is all I wanted to achieve.”

“It’s repeated in half an hour on another channel.”

“Oh.”

The Rat Tales of Polly and Ester

d'apres Langeder / Oil on Canvas / SOLD



Oh what fun the aging process is! Here's what I mean in video form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=HzSaoN2LdfU


This column was published in the West Quebec Post in 2011.

The Rat Tales of Polly and Ester

My Dear Dr. Shafik

I am delighted to be finally writing this letter because it has been a long time coming. I should certainly have written this many years ago to thank you profusely for your inspiration towards my life goal. Until your research came along I was pretty much like everyone else in the world living oblivious to the pain and suffering of scientists. Who knew that they were so deeply disturbed? Because of your research I found myself establishing the Society for the Rehabilitation of Misguided Scientists. This has become my lifelong passion now and until all scientists have taken up needlepoint for the betterment of themselves (and vicariously humanity) I will not rest!

You may be wondering exactly how you inspired me to such lofty goals? When I heard about the conclusion of your research which stated unequivocally that wearing polyester underwear caused both sexual infertility and poor libidos a light went on in my brain. How, I wondered, was a conclusion such as this actually, well… concluded? How did a scientist such as you come to know such lofty things?

So I looked it up. Now back in 1993 that wasn’t exactly an easy proposition. I had to take myself physically to a large institution called a library. People today rushing about on the Internet wouldn’t know about such things nor the grief and suffering I myself went through in my pursuit of the truth such as it was. I had to go through the card catalogue. It wasn’t easy. I had to talk to a person called a librarian (a daunting proposition to say the least) who sent me down into the bowels of the Library to find evidence of the research you conducted.

There, in the dark shadows of a musty corner I read your abstract where you state: “It struck me the other day that certain textiles used by the present-day industry to manufacture underwear could be generating electrostatic potentials on the surface of the human scrotum and induce harmful effects, if not infertility.” You then went on, as if it were perfectly normal, to explain how you dressed up little rats in wee little cotton, wool and polyester underwear. You even included a picture. The little rats wore their little underwear for six months continuously.

Who did you hire, I wondered, to make the little underwear? How did you explain to the seamstress what you were doing? Did she/he come in with a little measuring tape? Did you have little suspenders made in order to keep them on? Did you spend much time picking the colors? The weave? After the fitting and dressing did you take pictures? Did you put them in an album on your coffee table for your guests to peruse? “There’s Harry. He’s wearing plaid,” you’d say. “And Polly, she’s wearing pink polyester.” Did you smile fondly to yourself even as your guests were horrified?

And as if this wasn’t enough, you then went on to study the sexual activity of said rats. You counted the number of times each type of rat completed the… well, shall we say, “the act.” You did this for a few months.

There in the bowels of the Library I thought about you… this poor poor man sitting in front of a cage of rats counting the number of times rats mounted each other successfully. (Apparently if it was unsuccessful it didn’t count) I thought about the tidy little pile of cotton and wool and polyester underwear sitting by the cage. What a deeply sad and unhappy life, I thought! How could we have all missed seeing how much help you needed? How could we have let you go on to dress dogs in polyester underwear? Was there no one who could see your pain?

Well… I did. And so I founded my charitable society. There is now help for grown men such as yourself who find themselves dressing little rats in little underwear and/or similar things. And so for this I would like to thank you.

Sincerely yours, S. Shawcross.

Generation Text: Facing the Future

Passages / Oil on Canvas /24 x 30 /SOLD


Here's a fun video billed as the ultimate song about loneliness, love and loss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js4GepPNQro

This column was published in the West Quebec Post in 2012.
Generation Text: Facing the Future

Oh I love big cities! The noise! And the crowds! The crowds! That stormy sea of faces cluttering up the sidewalks. No wait… That was before. It’s different now. We don’t see faces anymore.

I know this because I have a friend who just returned from New York City and I told her my most favourite thing to do in a big city was to find a nice café somewhere and drink coffee while watching the faces of the people go by. But she said she didn’t see a single face. In fact the only faces she saw were those of the street people who still use their faces. The rest of the people were on their blackberry/phone/I-pad blitherbloos, racing along the sidewalks with their heads buried in technology, texting away, smashing into lamp posts and getting run over by cars being driven by people also texting with their faces in their laps. All she saw, says she, was the top of people’s heads as they went by.

The times have shifted. So much for Generation X: now it’s Generation Text.

So apparently we won’t be needing faces anymore. Faces are old biological-type technology more suited to the seventies than to this new world order we live in. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the evolutionary process is going to eventually eliminate this last vestige of bygone days because faces are more like the appendix now. We have them but we don’t use them.

Eventually doctors in the future will simply operate on us and remove these dreadful things called faces because they will inevitably become an embarrassment. They’ll be seen as horribly inefficient things always requiring care and upkeep, with open bits and pointy parts and crevices and creases that sometimes emit some of the most embarrassing sounds. They used to call those sounds conversation but now according to my most astute observations, these conversation things are just annoying noises polluting the otherwise serene silence of this generation who stare at you blankly when you talk to them. Talking, also known as forming words, is just a waste of energy now. Why make noise when you can just text message? Conversation is one of those things that makes use of things like abstract reasoning, the larynx, longer-than-20-second attention spans and the ability to realize there are actually other people in the world. According to scientists, who study the effects of this influx of recent technology, these things are swiftly disappearing. (Well… I’m not sure about the larynx part but I figure it’s likely.) We are evolving into silent linear thinkers without faces who can’t remember what we’re doing anymore and have forgotten how to use our voices other than to swear when we stub our toes.

The only thing of course that I’m worried about is Facebook. What will be the point of Facebook if we don’t have faces? Since Facebook is about the only place now where we can actually see what people look like, perhaps what will happen is we’ll all take pictures of ourselves at the age of 21 when we’re bright and beautiful in full make-up with a full-head of hair and that’ll be our image forever preserved before we go to surgery to have the thing removed.

But then why would we do that when we can create avatars with purple nostrils and flaming green hair and eyeballs shaped like the asteroids of Orion? It’s not like anybody is going to recognize us on the street or anything.

Of course when we stop using our faces what about all these cosmetic companies with their wrinkle removers and all-natural-made-in-China-from-plastic foundation coverage? They’ll have to evolve too. They’ll have to start learning how to decorate the tops of people’s heads with little bows and braids and tinsel and diamonds. Perhaps they’ll start creating hats with imitation faces on the top. That would give us old people something to talk to. And the street people too. I mean if we don’t give the street people and old people something to talk to, they might start getting uppity. We wouldn’t want that. Really.

I’m going to miss faces though I will admit. Kind of like how I miss telephone booths. They were comforting somehow, always there in the morning in the mirror or on the side of the road in an emergency. Oh well… Next week we may discuss whether or not it’s a good idea for people to tattoo faces on their bald spots. That’s an idea that just came off the top of my head. So to speak…

Pumpkin Banana Cream Mousse Tart

Merry Go Round / 2006 / Oil on Canvas /48 x 12 / SOLD
Here's a fun video. Probably posted before. Maybe i better make a list?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

This column was published in the West Quebec Post in 2012. It's a deeply tragic tale of love's labor lost and hostage-taking.


Pumpkin Banana Cream Mousse Tart

This story is not available at this time....

The ER Zone

The Love Affair / Pencil drawing /

Here's a medically related video that is deeply offensive, horribly politically incorrect and (because I'm forgetful these days) probably already posted before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyx-eaWkMH8


This column was published in the West Quebec Post in 2011. I am republishing it with the hope that things have changed and proper funding and resourcing have been found and are fixing the appalling Emergency Room situations in parts of this country. Perhaps you've had a few experiences with Canada's ERs these days? Why not post a comment below? Maybe the people in power haven't got a clue what it's really like so how will they ever know if no one tells them?
The ER Zone

It has been almost four hours now that we entered the Wakefield Memorial Hospital Emergency waiting area. We are running out of food now. Sure they said there would be food… but there isn’t any. It’s after hours now and the Giftshop Lady with all her candy and muffins has disappeared. We don’t have any change left. We spent the last tooney on the parking token. What was the use of that? It’s not as if we can leave. They haven’t called our name yet. I don’t think they will. The other ones are going in and some aren’t coming out. We don’t know where they’ve gone. We have no hope now of ever leaving here. If you get this message please send help and tell our friends and families that we love them.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. George had a sore throat and a low-grade fever. He had red splotches and white bumps. He was missing work from the coughing and that relentless body ache. It could have been strep. What did we know? We were fools. Just fools. I phoned for a doctor’s appointment cancellation. Any doctor, I said! Anyone! We weren’t fussy. But there were no cancellations. None at all. Not even two hours later. So I called the Nurse phone-line who said we should see a doctor just to be sure. “A simple swab” she said. Sure. Sure. Simple swab she said. So I called the first clinic. But it wasn’t open. It was a Friday. I called the next one but it wasn’t open either. The next one had a recorded message. It sounded like a recording from a lunatic speaking tongues. It made no sense. None at all.

The next one was open. Oh yes. It was open. Open for what? There were no doctors. No doctors until Sunday they said. Why? Why were they open? Were they just teasing us all? Promising hope for all the sick in one breath and snatching it away just like that. Were they laughing? I think so. There is just cruelty when compassion has died. They knew we would have no choice. They knew we’d either die of terror from the unknown “infection without a swab” or go there… to the Emergency Room. They knew we wouldn’t bring enough food or books. They knew we’d end up frothing and insane. They didn’t warn us. They didn’t care.

It only took three hours of waiting before I cracked. George said I stopped making sense. We asked them how long the wait was. They wouldn’t commit. They said it was an “Emergency Room” for heavenssakes. “What did we expect” they said. I lost it then. That’s when I told them that wasn’t right. That doesn’t make sense. It’s an oxymoron or something, I said. But no one would listen. Logic has no place in an asylum.

It doesn’t take long for the paranoia to set in. “It’s your name,” I told George. “Nobody in their right mind can pronounce it. They’ll never call your name! You fool!” I said. “Why didn’t you say your name was Beauchamp or something!” But he said there’s no point in blame. He said it was just the way it was. But I knew differently. No one got out of this without scars. Someone had to be accountable. “Why did you bring me with you?” I screamed! “WHY?”

The paranoia got worse. I started looking at the other ones--the few that got in. One had duct tape on his thumb. “Dammit George” I said, “why didn’t you put some duct tape on! You ‘know’ they like duct tape! You could have limped. You could have fainted or something! ANYTHING!” But George ignored me. He’d been slowly going into a coma staring at the red dots on the floor leading into the far reaches of the hospital. He had woken up startled thinking they were skull and crossbones leading to the morgue. I tried to calm him but I couldn’t. I knew we were doomed then. We were beyond hope.

“That woman,” I said, “Look at her! For godssakes… she only had one kid when she arrived. Now there are two! It’s too long I’m telling you! Too long!” But he wasn’t listening. He was humming the same stupid tune over and over and over. Over and over and over. I had to slap him. What else could I do? He’d gone mad.

It didn’t help. The relentless fluorescent lights done him in. He couldn’t talk. He still can’t. How many times do I have to slap him? He’s still mad. I can’t go on! I can’t I tell you! I can’t!

No… it won’t be long now. If you get this message. Please send help. They haven’t called his name yet. I don’t think they will. For the love of God people! Send Help!!!

Lament for a road

"The George" in Winter / Pencil drawing /


I'm back! It was a busy holiday season. Dreadfully weird weather January so far wouldn't you say? Here's a video I like for no reason other than I do and it is rather unique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9NF2edxy-M&feature=youtu.be


This column was published in the West Quebec Post in 2011. I am republishing it in solidarity with those human beings who climb ancient trees and those who are working hard to save a wildlife corridor in Larrimac. They are children of a greater God than most. [info@larrimacwildlife.ca]

Lament for a road

Across the road there is another road running perpendicular to the one on which I live. For almost twenty years while I have lived here this road did not change. It had two houses, really one old house and a cottage, tucked at the near end of it. It led quietly up through canopies of trees along the crooked creek. It grew narrow and rough at the end with wild flowers encroaching into its grey brown surface until eventually it became nothing more than a deer trail leading deep into mystery. I would walk the dog off leash there in the cathedral of the old growth forest dank with age. I rarely if ever met anyone on the trail, a deer maybe, a raccoon, once a black bear dark as the shadows.

The dog would snuffle in the undergrowth with such exhuberance that when we eventually returned home I would have to wash his black wet nose crusted with moss and the debris of the forest floor. It was what we did.

One long cold season they put in the highway 5 extension. The blasts rattled the windows and the birds would flash swarm from the trees like liquid running in the sky. The extension would cut off the end of the trail the road led to but even still it wandered here and there in cool light by the brook. The squirrels would flicker black and brown along the trunks and chatter in the branches and the taste of wet would always catch at the tongue like a wine well-aged.

When I did not walk the dog, my old father would go, his cane in hand. The dog would always run on ahead but still he would rush now and then back to my father’s waiting palm for a moment before moving on. They would dance this way back and forth as they moved forward. I would watch them before they disappeared around the bend. Sometimes when I look there I still see them but it is just a fancy on a sad day when I want what once was but can’t ever have again. It is a dear memory held close.

Even though those days passed, the road remained, swept wet with rain on some days and warm gold in summer suns. Its best days were in the autumn when the forest draped it with leaves but always each day, because it faced into the sunset, the road would be magnificent with colours, as many as there could be in a sunset. And at night particularly in winter the sheen of Orion on winter snow or the flutter of auroras would make magic there when all the world seemed cold and drab.

Now the trees have been cut back along the road. There are wires and poles and no less than ten new mansions have been erected. Ancient rocks were blast-crumbled into bits and areas of the forest were leveled; one house at a time. It is a regular little suburban street now with house numbers and recycling bins and far more traffic than can possibly be warranted for a dead-end road.

But even still, early in the morning or sometimes at dusk when night greets the weary end of day, the deer and the bears still make their way down the spine of the newly widened gravelled road to cross the highway over to the river. If they are lucky they will not be struck by passing cars that rush madly to the city. I remember the heart pain of witnessing the loss of bear cubs on the road and one young adolescent bear whose pain at dying crept into my heart and has stayed there. Sometimes I think only the road and I remember the swift shift of death that happened but really I am the one that carries the memory. It never leaves me.

I speak now from this quiet place to those of you I do not know. What could possibly be so important that you disrespect the quiet road? What could possibly be so important that you must kill the bears to get there on time?