A couple of old friends from my time in the Army Reserve found my picture and post at Rants and Revelations ยป Lorne Scots SRTP 1979 and have left some comments. It’s great, especially Alex McKelvey’s precis of what happened to nearly everybody. All this time later, it’s hard to remember who you liked and who you hated, and it probably doesn’t matter much now, but Alex was one of the ones I liked.
In the summer of 1979, I did the Summer Recruit Training Program with my unit of the Canadian Forces Reserve, the Lorne Scots, Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment. Back then we called it “the militia”, but living in the US has ruined that word for me.
While I was mowing the grass on Saturday, I managed to notice that both the passenger side doors on Laura’s car were unlocked, and the front one was actually ajar. Since both Laura and Stevie were known to not lock their doors when they were passenger’s in Vicki’s or my cars (in much the same manner that fish are known to like to swim in water), I assumed that she or her friends had just been careless the night before. I somehow managed to miss noticing that the back window was smashed. Somebody evidently broke into her car and found nothing worth stealing.
I guess I should probably stop leaving my GPS, digital camera, film camera, kayak paddle, and flight bag with 3 expensive headsets, portable transciever and my worthless but irreplaceable log book in the trunk of the car any more. Not sure about the XM radio - yeah, it’s supposedly portable but that would be such a hassle to drag in and out of the car every night. The CDs can probably stay - they’ve all been ripped to MP3 anyway, and besides they’re all obscure crap that nobody would steal.
Back when I worked for GeoVision we had a tradition in the winter that the night of the full moon, we’d go cross country skiing in the dark up to one of the lodges there, cook some dinner, hang out for a while, then ski home. It was extremely cool. One day at work, the day after one of these ski trips, I noticed that there was no money in my wallet. No matter, I thougth, I’ll just head over to the Toronto Dominion next door. But somebody else who had been skiing with us asked if my car had been broken into last night. I said I didn’t think so, so they asked me if there was any money in my wallet. They suggest that I go down to my car and look for a small hole beside the keyhole. Sure enough, there was one. Evidently somebody had gone around to all the cars, punched a hole in the door panel near the keyhole and opened the door somehow, and stolen any money he could find in the car, but only money.
The next full moon came, and this time I decided to be one step up on the theif. I put my wallet in my bum bag so it would come with me when I went skiing, and left the doors unlocked so I wouldn’t get another hole in my door. However, I stopped for gas on the way to the parking area, and so my wallet made its way from my bum bag to my work pants, so didn’t come with me on the ski. I came back to find my wallet had been emptied once again. Buggeration.
This morning I watched NBC’s “The Great Race”, a recap of the men’s 4×10km relay at the Lillihammer Olympics. (It’s available on Google Video if you didn’t catch it, but it costs money and requires Windows to do so.
It was an extremely well done piece, although they didn’t show the famous bit where Dahle stopped and tried to force the Italian to go ahead of him, but he wouldn’t. At least I think that was in this race - maybe I’m thinking of the 4×10 at Salt Lake?
Anyway, I’m watching these guys race in brilliant sunshine, and it’s a similarly brilliantly sunny and cold day here. And I feel every movement - my muscles are twiching in time to them, and I can feel it, I can smell it, and I can taste it. I feel the fatigue, the joy, the accomplishment. I remember the way your lungs burn and your muscles work, I remember the way you could smell the humidity and temperature, see and feel the condition of the tracks, and adjust your stride accordingly. I remember seeing and feeling every little rut and bump in the track and trying to use it to your advantage. I remember that nifty little way you’d swing one of your poles forward when you switched from diagonal stride to double poling, and how cool it looked when others did it. I remember being in packs of skiers all in synch. I remember going out every weekend that there wasn’t a race and skiing 30 to 50 kilometers, and not thinking anything about it. I remember skiing in the rain, in bitter, bitter cold, in icy conditions, in slush, where there wasn’t any snow on the ground or when it was snowing so hard that you couldn’t see the next bend in the trail. And I remember doing it all because on those days when it was sunny and about -2C and your wax was good, there was no feeling in the world like it. It didn’t matter if you won or came in slower than your personal best, it was just great to be out there. The effort beforehand, and the soreness and tiredness afterwards, it was all worth it.
After the race, I started to cry. It was the worst cry I’ve had since I was in therapy, huge wracking sobs. And all because I realized that I’ll never have that feeling again.
When I was a young skier, just starting to enter ski races, there was a skier in my club named Karl. He was older, grey haired, and had started skiing in his home country (Germany, I think) when he was quite young. I was about 15, and he was probably in his mid to late 50s. He gave me advice and encouragement. The first year or two, he was well ahead of me in every race. Then I got a pair of real Peltonen racing skis instead of my heavy old Madshus light touring skis. They were light, they were fast, and they had three grooves in the tail that were supposed to break the suction on wet snow. They weren’t the most aggressive racing skis on the market, they weren’t even the most aggressive racing skis that Peltonen made. But they were mine. And the first race I skied in them, I cut a HUGE percentage off my previous best, and beat Karl by a small margin.
Karl became less and less of a factor in my later years, but I always thought that when I got to his age, I’d be enouraging young racers the same way. Between him and Jackrabbit Johannsen, I had enough role models to think that skiing was going to be part of my life for the rest of my life.
That was before the pain. And now I have to accept the fact that pain is going to be the defining element of the rest of my life, not skiing.
In 1979 I was peripherally involved in what was the largest peace-time evacuation in North America. Late November 10th or early November 11th, a train carrying tank cars full of propane and chlorine derailed in downtown Mississauga, Ontario. Some of the propane cars caught fire and there was a great danger if some of them exploded they could burst the chlorine tanks and spread chlorine gas (or as they called in the First World War, mustard gas) over the city.
I first heard about it the next morning, where as a member of the Lorne Scots - Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve, I was taking part in the Remembrance Day celebrations in Brampton, a short drive from Mississauga. One of our number had been walking home from the bar when he’d seen a huge fireball to the south, and had assumed that somebody had nuked Toronto.
As an aside, I should mention that a disturbing number of reservists in our Regiment were expecting and hoping for a war to break out. I should also mention that the state of our training was pretty lousy - we could do drill and we could shoot, but we had very little exposure to tactics and rules of engagement and the like.
I enjoyed participating in the ceremony, although I wasn’t high enough rank to be invited to be in the honour guard, so I was wearing combats (or as they say in the US, BDUs) rather than kilt and tunic. It’s a touching ceremony, plus it was an easy half day’s pay.
Before and after the ceremony, we were abuzz with information and rumours of what was going on Mississauga. As we were sitting around in the Junior Ranks Mess drinking, the sargeant came in and said “You know boys, when you signed in for your pay, you’re officially signed in until dismissed. You haven’t been dismissed yet, and we’ve got something else for you to do.” And he lead us out to the street where we had one deuce and a half (two and a half truck) and a bunch of civillian cars.
We headed down to Mississauga in convoy. It seemed that every street corner had police directing traffic, and they weren’t letting people in. The lucky people in the civillian cars (warmer than the back of a deuce and a half) had to put on their emergency flashers to signal that they were with us to get through the road blocks. What we saw of Mississauga was mostly traffic heading out, and otherwise deserted streets. We went to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) station to offer our help to patrol the empty streets or direct traffic or whatever they wanted us to do. But I think they were a little scared about putting uniformed soldiers on the streets without a direction from Ottawa, so we were put in a room, and did nothing for hours and hours. Eventually they told us to go home. We were pretty pissed off at having our offer of help rejected, especially when we learned on the way home that the Canadian Airborne Regiment had been flown over from Pembroke to do the work that we’d been already there on the ground offering to do.
So we left. By that time, probably 4 or 5 pm, there was almost no traffic anywhere on the streets, not even people leaving.
The upshot of the whole mess was that the chlorine tanks didn’t rupture, 218,000 people were peaceably evacuated without major problems and without leaving behind the old, poor, elderly or disabled. The Mississauga evacuation plan was evidently a model for other cities to emulate, and the CN railroad stopped putting chlorine tankers next to propane tankers.
Read it. Especially read the sample column, all three pages.
Gordon Baxter died yesterday. He was 81.
I don’t think Gordon Baxter will mean much to most of you, but he was a radio personality (and I do mean “personality” - not a personality-free meat puppet or a screaming idealogue which as what they mean now when they use that term) and writer. And to me, he was the epitome of what it meant to be a pilot.
When I started to fly, I subscribed to a load of flying magazines, including the iconic “Flying”. They’d all arrive about the same time, but before I started on any of them I’d turn to the back of “Flying” and read “The Bax Seat”, Gordon Baxter’s column. One of the first one I read was about how he’d had to surrender his medical and couldn’t fly solo any more. Many of his later ones were about flights taken with kind friends who would be Pilot In Command but let him take the yoke or the stick for old times sake. Many of his articles made me cry.
He didn’t write much about the gory and mundane details of flying, weather, regulations, airspace, or the machines (although he loved his Mooney). Flying for him was about being in the company of people who you love like your best friend on first meeting because they share your love for flying. It was about the places he went and the people he met. And he wrote about it in an easy effortless manner that many have tried and failed to emulate - because it was obvious that they were trying, while “Bax” didn’t have to try, he just wrote.
A few years ago one of the Flying editors said that Bax was too sick to write any more, and they started running some of his best old columns in the magazine. Then they wrote how overwhelmed Bax was by the outpouring of love from people who’d never met him.
I never met Bax, and yet I feel his loss.
Blue skies, Bax.
I forgot something I meant to put in yesterday’s post about VE Day.
My mother tells a story of how during the war she was a young girl living in St. Ives, Cornwall. For part of the war they had a Canadian commando billeted with them. She says he’d come home after a hard day storming ashore in rubber boats and climbing cliffs and he was quiet, polite, and he always offered to help out around the house. And he would tell them stories about his home back in Canada. She was quite impressed with this young man.
I’m sure my father had his own reasons, but my mother says that the commando’s stories were one reason why she wanted to move to Canada after they got married.
I have no idea about where the commando was from, what unit he was with, or if he survived the war. But I know that when I’m honouring the service of the soldiers who fought in the wars, I always say a silent prayer of thanks for that quiet young man, whoever he is, because without him I might have grown up British instead of Canadian. And growing up Canadian is something I’m profoundly grateful for.
For the glorious few
no longer stand so straight
As they did long years before
when they faced a hard and cruel fate
on a far and distant shore.
Their tunics faded, green and blue
poor shelter from this cold;
the memories made yet raw and new
at the calling of the roll.
Garnet Rogers - 11:11
Alyssa and I went today to watch the VE Day 60th Anniversary Parade, as the veterans who did so much for us paraded from the National War Memorial on Elgin Street to the opening of the new National War Museum on Le Breton Flats.
On the drive into Ottawa on Friday night, I heard a few stories about VE Day celebrations. One was about this organization of women who’d served overseas as drivers, clerks, nurses, etc, and who were disbanding their organization after this VE Day because there were too few remaining to and those remaining weren’t able to travel to reunions. And a similar story later about how this 60th anniversary celebration in Holland will probably be the last, and certainly the last “significant” anniversay, where vets will be able to come in any number, and how the damn politicians are ruining it for them by crashing what was supposed to private dinner and dance for the vets and their wives only because partisan bickering kept the politicians from going to the public ceremony today.
The vets were supposed to come along Wellington Street at 11:30, but since there were politicians giving speeches at the National War Memorial, of course they were late. They started streaming by at about 12:45. I tried to keep Alyssa entertained by telling her some of the stories my parents and grand parents told me about their experience in the war. I’m hoping that these sorts of stories will help keep the memories alive and maybe spark some later interest in the history. Of course this long delay meant that I was standing far longer than I should have been, and my knees and hips are screaming in pain in spite of the Celebrex I’ve taken.
First was an honour guard, most of whom were wearing “spam medals” (Canadian Volunteer Service Medal) or other campaign medals or ribbons. Then some marching soldiers, some obviously WW-II vets as well, others more recent. A few wearing peace-keeping blue berets. Then some more of the WW-II vets came riding an assortment of era vehicles including Bren Gun Carriers, Deuce and a Halfs, Jeeps, DUCWs, and Sherman (”Ronson”) tanks.
As everybody passed by, the crowd applauded constantly, and called out “Thank you”. It was touching how many of the veterans called back “Thank you for showing up.” The people next to us were holding an Air Force ensign, and all the Air Force vets commented on it as they went by.
I was amazed to see in amongst the vets was a man in a motorized wheel chair wearing a Glengary with the cap badge 
of the Lorne Scots (Peel Dufferin and Halton Regiment), the same unit that I spent my time in. I ran along side him a bit and told him that I’d been in the Lorne Scots, but he couldn’t hear that well so I didn’t get a chance to ask him where he served. The Lorne Scots were all over the place in the war, including Boulogne, Dieppe and Sicily. But even if he was one of the people involved in the training brigades that never left England, there is nothing in my valiant defence of Canadian Forces Base Boredom from the perdiferous Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (the “ASH-CANs”) that even remotely matches his service. But I hope my brief time trying to carry on the regimental traditions carries some weight.
A little while later there was another man wearing the cap badge and the Glengarry, and also the primrose hackle of the Lorne Scots, but he wasin a truck with a bunch of other people and he was talking to them and couldn’t hear me calling out to him.
Of course with both men, I had to resist the urge to call out some of the Lorne Scots regimental songs, all of which I only know the extremely rude words for, not the “real” ones.
Lorne Scots once
Lorne Scots twice
Holy Jumping Jesus Christ!
We are the Lorne Scots,
We wear our kilts, we wear no jocks
We wrap our putties around our cocks
To keep our balls from freezing.
and so on.
Every few years I have a dream where I’m back in the Lorne Scots. It was a period of my life I have very mixed emotions about, but I’m glad that I served.
It’s two months to the day since I switched from MovableType to Wordpress, and the spammers finally found me. And SpamKarma deleted all 7 spams without a whimper. It even decided that one IP was a repeat spammer and banned them from my blog entirely. I checked and that IP has a http redirector on port 80, probably installed without the computer owner’s knowledge.
I hate spammers with the firey passion of a thousand suns. I’ve been waiting with bated breath for them to start spamming my blog again, and I’m quite relieved to see that SpamKarma handled the first onslaught with nary a whimper.
In other geek news, I’ve got good news: I’ve got Tiger on my laptop. It’s been running the CPU and disk for hours now indexing it for Spotlight. But Dashboard is pretty cool. I kind of wish it would have an option to display the widgets all the time like Konfabulator, but it’s a good replacement for it. I hope somebody fixes GnuControl soon.
And in other geek news, I’ve got bad news: My Linksys router did that thing where the wireless side loses its mind again. The new firmware didn’t fix it. I’ve heard there are hardware problems with the V2.2 hardware. I guess that’s why it was so cheap. I’m also guessing there is no way in hell I’ll get Linksys to take it back.
I registered for Blogger because I was sick of typing in my name and URL every time I commented on the Aviation In Canada blog. I put in my interests, and saw that one of the other people with “Orienteering” as an interest was named Tom Hollowell. That’s a name I remember quite vividly.
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I’m sure people have started to wonder if I have any happy memories. Well, thanks to my mom and a scanner at work, I now have some pictures from one of the happiest period of my life. I’ve tried to work out the time line and put them in roughly chronological order. You can see them all here. I’ll probably write blog entries about several of them. But to start with, here’s a picture that I think comes from that first car-camping trip with Heidi on Victoria Day.
The best dog in the history of the world was named Heidi, and she was part of my life for most of my teens.
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One of our Christmas visitors was making me crazy yesterday, because he wouldn’t shut the fuck up about wanting a throwing star. (Yeah, I really think a 13 year old with poor impulse control (but I repeat myself) needs a sharp and possibly lethal weapon.) So I tried to remember times when I probably drove my parents nuts by whining and begging for something.
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For that last couple of days, people on the LUGOR (Linux Users Group of Rochester) have been trading back and forth screen shots showing their particular setups. (Oh, and they’ve all been smart enough to put the screen shots on a web site somewhere and just emailing the URL - thanks, guys.) But that got me thinking about something that happened over 10 years ago.
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