These are extraordinary times and they are made more surreal and lethal by the bizarre antics of the President of the United States. For older folk, like me, they make us reach back and wonder if there were other periods in our lives as dark and eerily dramatic as those we are living in. I was ten years old when World War II came to an end – not nearly old enough to sense the weight and horror of events, but old enough to have understood the drama that suffused our lives. Many more of us will recall the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 which came perilously close to devastating large parts of our planet. But it was not until long after, when the files were opened, that we understood how close we came to a nuclear Armageddon and that we were saved by the character and humanitarian impulse of both Kennedy and, surprisingly, Khrushchev.
Sorry to hear about the rain, but a sprinkle must be good for the citrus. Here, we are deep in snow – a record fall in January and about a metre fell in mid-February. Mountains of snow are now covered with a thick sheet of ice. If it sounds like the situation 11,000 years ago that created our last ice age and maybe the Great Lakes, it should. The RSPCA is checking out a reported woolly mammoth sighting near the RCMP barracks. Who knows?
Our street resembles a photo taken in the winter of 1916 of an Allied trench in Verdun. Thick walls on both sides border a narrow lane of deeply corrugated ice at the bottom. Injured bodies are removed periodically to first-aid stations and, in some cases, coarse language has been heard. Smart people are wielding ski poles and fixing crampons to their boots – these are the spiky attachments worn for climbing in the Alps.
Some residents complain that it’s difficult to keep track of their neighbours’ activities as huge mounts of snow block the usual window viewing. Meanwhile the mayor produced another deadline for LRT and then a trial run by an LRT snow plough on the tracks smashed into some transponders (train control systems) – so another delay.
Any good news – well not much, but it does keep people from grousing full time about the Senators, Melnyk and the Premier – as well as bashing each other from their respective sides on SNC-Lavalin/Wilson-Raybould and the PM.
As I write two people are trying to hack ice and snow build-up from a neighbouring roof. Oops! Albert slipped – ahh! Caught himself in time.
Must go! The family needs another run toddy.
Love to Mitzi, the tadpoles and Bonzo, the slobbery wolfhound.
