Yes CJ, its story time with Gerry again.
My Mom is a spry 84, who still gardens and rides her bicycle in the mean streets of Montréal. Trust me, to a cyclist, Montreal streets are mean. In 1999 some dough-head threw open the door of his minivan while my Mom was going by. She ended up with a broken arm and a black eye. The city is full of jack-asses. But I digress.
Actually, when I last visited my Mom, one of our conversations was about her bicycle. She keeps her bike locked up in the basement garage of her building in Benny Farm. Apparently, she recently took a spill trying to get it out of the garage, so is considering giving up her cycling. I find this rather sad. You see, Mom has been an inspiration for many, riding her bike into her 80’s. But safe is safe.
Also on my last visit, Mom has noticed that she is forgetting things. She has been voicing her memory concerns for a few years. She mentioned to me that it’s like a book; all the stuff is in there, it’s just that as more pages get added to the book, it is sometimes hard to find the page you’re looking for. She gets frustrated with this, and discusses it often. I try to reassure her not to worry too much about it, as the worrying does not diminish the forgetting. She gets the point, but then forgets because she mentions how she keeps forgetting things.
But back to Story Time. My grandparents bought their house on West Broadway in the 1930’s. There was only farmland north of their attached home stretching all the way to the train tracks at Cote-St-Luc road. As well, the Benny’s owned a farm at Cavendish & Sherbrooke. Over the years, Mom saw all the local farms receding into memory.
Benny Farm was bought by the federal government shortly after WWII to build low-cost housing for the returning soldiers. These were all 3-story walk-ups that ended up housing many of our chums from high school. The present Benny Farm has morphed into a mix of old and new buildings; some of the original buildings are in the process of being reworked, some have been refurbished and are housing single-mom families, and some have been torn down and replaced.
25 years ago, the nest had emptied, save my youngest sister. My father was unable to work anymore, so my parents (Mom really) decided to move from my grandparents house into Benny Farm. I took a week off of work and gave them a freshly painted apartment to move into. Interestingly enough, their first building is still standing, and Mom tells me it will become a CLSC (Centre Local des Services Communautaires = super community centre).
This was a scary time for my Mom. My Dad, Big Al,was sick and could not work. It appeared that Big Al's condition had finally been properly diagnosed and was being treated effectively. The hatchlings had gone from a high of 6 kids (How you doing Wayne) down to only 1. So Mom decided it was time to change.
Benny Farm at the time had a short waiting list; I think they only waited about 4 months after the decision was made. In the intervening years, specifically after the new buildings were built, they began to really enforce the Veterans first, and then Veterans only rule. As Big Al’s contemporaries and the Korean Vets have been dying off, the Vets only rule has been downgraded.
Through all this, my Mom would work to keep herself busy. When my sister was still in school, she became involved in the school board. As they began planning for the new buildings in Benny Farm for the Veterans, she worked on this next. I learned from Mom that you need to stay busy, and you might as well help those around you. My Mom had some really great talents and skills to bring to these organizations, which greatly benefited.
Mom’s experience from these community endeavors are displayed on the walls of her apartment. They are mixed in with her pictures of family. The walls are quite amazing; she has pictures that predate her childhood all the way up to pictures of her grown grandchildren. No picture is wasted on Mom. These are her triggers to remember her experiences.
For me they are a great tapestry and spark great memories. For Mom, they do the same, but have a much more wonderful affect; they are bookmarks in the pages in her book.
There is a plan afoot to have all her grandchildren in Montréal for a visit in November. Mom, just consider it more bookmarks.
I love you Mom.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
More driving
Yes CJ, its story time with Gerry again.
And now, the end of the trilogy. Driving in BC is sometimes an exercise in patience, and sometimes it’s a trip down memory lane. Usually the former.
Strangely enough, driving Granville road from downtown, to the Airport reminds me of Montréal traffic. You see, there is no highway from downtown Vancouver to the airport. In Canada, it’s one of the closest city’s airports to its downtown cores. On a good day, the taxi fare is under $30.
But herein lies the problem. Since there is no highway, Granville, being a 6-lane road, is used as a stand-in expressway to the airport by the taxis. I love this stuff; it reminds of driving in downtown Montréal traffic. I thought I had returned to the roadways of my youth. I was happy. My wife was not. She values her life, or so she keeps reminding me from behind clenched teeth, firmly grasping the Jesus bar.
Some of the frustration of BC driving comes from the drivers, and some comes from the planners. 2 of the more famous Vancouver bridges have an odd number of lanes. The Lions Gate Bridge has 3 lanes, as does the road through Stanley Park. Yes 3. My cousin Mike has serious concerns about the intelligence of those who thought this was planning. My cousin Mike is a very intelligent and astute fellow.
The Port Mann Bridge is a 5-lane um, well, oddity. There are 3 eastbound lanes, and 2 westbound. Analyzing this in logical terms, they want more people out of Vancouver more than they want going in. I know that BC’ers are aware of the inequity, yet it remains. In order to compensate for it, Highway 1 east of the bridge is only 2 lanes westbound. With this planning gem in hand, Sunday afternoon traffic backs up at least half-way through Langley & Surrey. On a bad day, you can tell someone from Surrey by how surly they are. Bad joke? Sorry.
Highway 1 through Burnaby is the most traveled highway in the lower mainland. Highway 1 only goes through Vancouver for about 3 Km. Yes that is correct. The largest city in western Canada is serviced by all of 3 Km of highway, and only through its eastern tip. Wisconsin Tourism Federation!
Now let me dicuss the drivers. I think they have all OD’ed on granola. Either that, or while hugging trees, they have had their free will was sucked out of them by their friendly neighborhood cedar. Highway 1 through Burnaby is a six lane road. There are 3 eastbound and 3 westbound lanes. The left-most lane in either direction is a diamond lane, reserved for buses, motorcycles, and vehicles with more than 2 people.
No that wasn’t a typo. Most of BC’s HOV lanes require 2 occupants. And for those who were wondering, the HOV lanes are less than a tenth as busy as the regular lanes, anytime of day. Logic tells us from this that a vast majority of cars on the highway have only 1 passenger. Good old green BC.
Now in the right & middle lanes, one would assume that we would see slower and faster traffic respectively. Not so. This is where the free will or granola poisoning comes in. Much to the disdain of anyone from other parts of the country, dude in the center lane is quite content to match dude in the right lane’s 85 klicks. C’mon folks, tune in to our world, please?!?
Montréalers don’t do well in Vancouver. They expect to be able to go fast. Not gonna happen. Get behind the two-some doing 85 side-by-each and start flashing your high beams; nothing. If anything, it usually forces both cars to slow slightly, trying to figure out why you’re flashing them. The one time in 100 you get them to separate and manage to pass them, both are blissfully unaware of the world around them, happily staring blankly ahead. Do you remember the movie “The Stepford Wives”?
I sometimes wonder if all these drivers think that it is their duty to make sure no one goes over the speed limit. But then again I notice how disconnected they are from the frustrations they cause. So now it’s lesson time. Every time you think that someone is doing something on purpose or to just to tick you off, remember that most people are so engrossed in their own little world that they just don’t have enough bandwidth to waste on you. After all, you’re just another car on the road.
And folks, it’s not juts driving; it’s everything. If your boss isn’t paying you the attention you think is your due, it’s probably because he/she is focused on something that is important to them. To put a different spin in this, when a 3-year-old is engrossed with their Barbie, or Pogs, or Tamagotchi, we don’t rail on them, do we?
Treat others the way you would treat a 3-year-old, even those who aren’t acting like one.
Cheers folks!
And now, the end of the trilogy. Driving in BC is sometimes an exercise in patience, and sometimes it’s a trip down memory lane. Usually the former.
Strangely enough, driving Granville road from downtown, to the Airport reminds me of Montréal traffic. You see, there is no highway from downtown Vancouver to the airport. In Canada, it’s one of the closest city’s airports to its downtown cores. On a good day, the taxi fare is under $30.
But herein lies the problem. Since there is no highway, Granville, being a 6-lane road, is used as a stand-in expressway to the airport by the taxis. I love this stuff; it reminds of driving in downtown Montréal traffic. I thought I had returned to the roadways of my youth. I was happy. My wife was not. She values her life, or so she keeps reminding me from behind clenched teeth, firmly grasping the Jesus bar.
Some of the frustration of BC driving comes from the drivers, and some comes from the planners. 2 of the more famous Vancouver bridges have an odd number of lanes. The Lions Gate Bridge has 3 lanes, as does the road through Stanley Park. Yes 3. My cousin Mike has serious concerns about the intelligence of those who thought this was planning. My cousin Mike is a very intelligent and astute fellow.
The Port Mann Bridge is a 5-lane um, well, oddity. There are 3 eastbound lanes, and 2 westbound. Analyzing this in logical terms, they want more people out of Vancouver more than they want going in. I know that BC’ers are aware of the inequity, yet it remains. In order to compensate for it, Highway 1 east of the bridge is only 2 lanes westbound. With this planning gem in hand, Sunday afternoon traffic backs up at least half-way through Langley & Surrey. On a bad day, you can tell someone from Surrey by how surly they are. Bad joke? Sorry.
Highway 1 through Burnaby is the most traveled highway in the lower mainland. Highway 1 only goes through Vancouver for about 3 Km. Yes that is correct. The largest city in western Canada is serviced by all of 3 Km of highway, and only through its eastern tip. Wisconsin Tourism Federation!
Now let me dicuss the drivers. I think they have all OD’ed on granola. Either that, or while hugging trees, they have had their free will was sucked out of them by their friendly neighborhood cedar. Highway 1 through Burnaby is a six lane road. There are 3 eastbound and 3 westbound lanes. The left-most lane in either direction is a diamond lane, reserved for buses, motorcycles, and vehicles with more than 2 people.
No that wasn’t a typo. Most of BC’s HOV lanes require 2 occupants. And for those who were wondering, the HOV lanes are less than a tenth as busy as the regular lanes, anytime of day. Logic tells us from this that a vast majority of cars on the highway have only 1 passenger. Good old green BC.
Now in the right & middle lanes, one would assume that we would see slower and faster traffic respectively. Not so. This is where the free will or granola poisoning comes in. Much to the disdain of anyone from other parts of the country, dude in the center lane is quite content to match dude in the right lane’s 85 klicks. C’mon folks, tune in to our world, please?!?
Montréalers don’t do well in Vancouver. They expect to be able to go fast. Not gonna happen. Get behind the two-some doing 85 side-by-each and start flashing your high beams; nothing. If anything, it usually forces both cars to slow slightly, trying to figure out why you’re flashing them. The one time in 100 you get them to separate and manage to pass them, both are blissfully unaware of the world around them, happily staring blankly ahead. Do you remember the movie “The Stepford Wives”?
I sometimes wonder if all these drivers think that it is their duty to make sure no one goes over the speed limit. But then again I notice how disconnected they are from the frustrations they cause. So now it’s lesson time. Every time you think that someone is doing something on purpose or to just to tick you off, remember that most people are so engrossed in their own little world that they just don’t have enough bandwidth to waste on you. After all, you’re just another car on the road.
And folks, it’s not juts driving; it’s everything. If your boss isn’t paying you the attention you think is your due, it’s probably because he/she is focused on something that is important to them. To put a different spin in this, when a 3-year-old is engrossed with their Barbie, or Pogs, or Tamagotchi, we don’t rail on them, do we?
Treat others the way you would treat a 3-year-old, even those who aren’t acting like one.
Cheers folks!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Still Driving
Yes CJ, its storey time with Gerry again.
And now, back to the regularly scheduled victims, Torontonians. Toronto drivers are, for the most part, extremely frustrating in their lack of attention. I remember stories on the news of commuters on the DVP getting into fender-benders as they were reading the newspaper. I have personally seen drivers reading a book in crawling traffic. I can just imagine today (I left Ontario in 2002), with the profusion of texting and e-mailing, how much more dangerous it would be.
Driver memory in Toronto is very sketchy & scary. When the first winter storm hits, people have usually forgotten how to drive in snow. You end up with lots of headlights pointing at you from the ditch. Once they remember, you get odd disconnects. I have been stuck in crawling traffic in a gentle drizzle, and 2 days later, the 401 is bombing along at 120 through a snow storm. And then 6 months later, the complete reverse; crawling through a gentle snowfall, and barreling along above 100 in driving rain.
And finally, the use of horns. Torontonians love their horns. I think this is an indication of a short fuse, and leads to the some of displays of rage I have seen. I have seen wronged drivers (in their worlds) race down residential streets after someone who had the temerity to pass them on the highway, just so they can wave at them. It can be a scary city to drive in.
Next on my Cross Canada sojourn was Calgary, followed by Edmonton. On pain of being disallowed to re-enter either city, I will lump Albertans together. Albertans like big; they think they’re Texans on a number of levels. Pick-me-up trucks are rampant; mostly oversized, with supercharged engines, and king-cabs. For the gentry, there is the SUV. The bigger the truck, the smaller the…. Wait a second, my mom reads this.
Albertans love to drive fast. Unlike Québecers, the fast is alone; it does not get appended with well. Fortunately, the highways of Alberta do not have the volume of Québec, Ontario, or BC. QE II highway (formerly Highway 2), between Edmonton & Calgary, is usually wide open for traffic, and people routinely do 130 K/H on a road whose limit is 110. I have seen people doing 125 and getting waved at from others wanting to go faster.
Once again, with my personal safety as a concern, I will state that of all the provinces, Albertans are too often the lamb being led to slaughter. Too often I have heard Calagarians whine about the Deadfoot (Dearfoot), or Edmontonians bitch about the Whitemud, without them being the least bit interested in finding another route. Perhaps their concern is that without taking either crawling freeway, they couldn’t complain about it. I know dozens of ways to traverse Toronto without using the dreaded 401. And I have learned many alternate routes through Calgary & Edmonton.
I will take one last shot at Edmonton, and their road planning (or lack thereof). The Whitemud freeway has level intersections with traffic lights. Yes that is correct; a freeway with traffic lights. They liked this idea so much, they have recreated it for the Anthony Henday. This is the new ring road. It also has level/light controlled intersections. The real head-shaker comes when you look to the side at these intersections and see they have built up the earth in preparation for overpasses. The reason they did not build the overpasses initially? It would have been too expensive, so they will build them later. Trying to reason this out makes my head sore.
I really do have to complement Albertans on their winter driving skills. I have seen none better. Mind you, I have never driven in Saskatchewan. The winters in Edmonton are, as I have stated in a previous blog, colder than anywhere else I have lived. When they start talking about wind chills in the -50’s, you would think it would keep people off the road, but not so. Obviously, the abattoir is open daily.
This has turned into a 3-part submission on driving, so I will close with BC on my next post. I hope I can get BC into 1 post.
Cheers folks!
And now, back to the regularly scheduled victims, Torontonians. Toronto drivers are, for the most part, extremely frustrating in their lack of attention. I remember stories on the news of commuters on the DVP getting into fender-benders as they were reading the newspaper. I have personally seen drivers reading a book in crawling traffic. I can just imagine today (I left Ontario in 2002), with the profusion of texting and e-mailing, how much more dangerous it would be.
Driver memory in Toronto is very sketchy & scary. When the first winter storm hits, people have usually forgotten how to drive in snow. You end up with lots of headlights pointing at you from the ditch. Once they remember, you get odd disconnects. I have been stuck in crawling traffic in a gentle drizzle, and 2 days later, the 401 is bombing along at 120 through a snow storm. And then 6 months later, the complete reverse; crawling through a gentle snowfall, and barreling along above 100 in driving rain.
And finally, the use of horns. Torontonians love their horns. I think this is an indication of a short fuse, and leads to the some of displays of rage I have seen. I have seen wronged drivers (in their worlds) race down residential streets after someone who had the temerity to pass them on the highway, just so they can wave at them. It can be a scary city to drive in.
Next on my Cross Canada sojourn was Calgary, followed by Edmonton. On pain of being disallowed to re-enter either city, I will lump Albertans together. Albertans like big; they think they’re Texans on a number of levels. Pick-me-up trucks are rampant; mostly oversized, with supercharged engines, and king-cabs. For the gentry, there is the SUV. The bigger the truck, the smaller the…. Wait a second, my mom reads this.
Albertans love to drive fast. Unlike Québecers, the fast is alone; it does not get appended with well. Fortunately, the highways of Alberta do not have the volume of Québec, Ontario, or BC. QE II highway (formerly Highway 2), between Edmonton & Calgary, is usually wide open for traffic, and people routinely do 130 K/H on a road whose limit is 110. I have seen people doing 125 and getting waved at from others wanting to go faster.
Once again, with my personal safety as a concern, I will state that of all the provinces, Albertans are too often the lamb being led to slaughter. Too often I have heard Calagarians whine about the Deadfoot (Dearfoot), or Edmontonians bitch about the Whitemud, without them being the least bit interested in finding another route. Perhaps their concern is that without taking either crawling freeway, they couldn’t complain about it. I know dozens of ways to traverse Toronto without using the dreaded 401. And I have learned many alternate routes through Calgary & Edmonton.
I will take one last shot at Edmonton, and their road planning (or lack thereof). The Whitemud freeway has level intersections with traffic lights. Yes that is correct; a freeway with traffic lights. They liked this idea so much, they have recreated it for the Anthony Henday. This is the new ring road. It also has level/light controlled intersections. The real head-shaker comes when you look to the side at these intersections and see they have built up the earth in preparation for overpasses. The reason they did not build the overpasses initially? It would have been too expensive, so they will build them later. Trying to reason this out makes my head sore.
I really do have to complement Albertans on their winter driving skills. I have seen none better. Mind you, I have never driven in Saskatchewan. The winters in Edmonton are, as I have stated in a previous blog, colder than anywhere else I have lived. When they start talking about wind chills in the -50’s, you would think it would keep people off the road, but not so. Obviously, the abattoir is open daily.
This has turned into a 3-part submission on driving, so I will close with BC on my next post. I hope I can get BC into 1 post.
Cheers folks!
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