My Best Friend

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OK, so You’ve got a guy nicknamed “Skid” who has just transferred from the Catholic boys’ High School, at De La Salle Oaklands in Toronto, to York Mills Collegiate in North York. His goal: to study science, which wasn’t taught in Grade Thirteen at his former school.

Enter a guy nicknamed “Fritz” who arrives from the USA with his Dad. He happens to settle, with his Collie Rex, in North York’s first dog friendly apartment towers at the York Mills and Sheppard area of North York. Skid, with his Border Collie Chips, and his family  have just sold their home in North York and happen to move into the same Carluke Crescent apartments.

They meet dog walking, and then at school, and then discover they are much wanted fresh faces at the York Mills C.I. social scene. Needless to say, Skid’s exemplary top of class marks from De La Salle plummeted in the face of so much mixed school female attention. Likewise, Fritz, under so much demand for his exotic American background and basic good looks, suffered a similar loss of academic success.

Sports were fine – football and skiing and wrestling teams and drama clubs – we won championships and standing ovations! The downside was that I had to repeat Grade Thirteen and Fritz was given a choice –  pick up your marks or enlist. In a supreme act of teenage rebellion, he enlisted to join the Paratroopers training at Fort Bragg before heading off to Vietnam.

I fast forward – he survives the darkest and most deadly times of the Vietnam wars, marries, has children, establishes a chiropractic practice in California, his wife passes, and we continue to be the best of friends. I have only visited him once in California and he has only visited me once in Ontario, but he is in my heart and soul forever. We took our Dad’s golfing once on the St. Andrew’s golf course attached to our apartment complex. Then we went as a family to Dad’s fishing haven at Deep Bay on Lake Huron.

We made a famous spoof teen age movie together, “Whatever Shape Your Agent’s In” to celebrate our love of Sean Connery as 007. We had every “”Bond Girl” at York Mills auditioning for a role in the movie. A lot of bath bubbles went into the mix.. Fritz later dubbed the 007 theme music into the sound track. Steven Spielberg, eat your Super Seven heart out!

My best friend is now relaxing in California, celebrating with his longtime American hiking friends at his outpost on a river that flows into the Pacific. I will be there in spirit!

Yours outdoors,
Skid

Kakistrocracy

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The word “kakistocracy” was introduced to the English lexicon in the seventeenth century and used during the English Civil War between King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. it means: “Government by the worst. least qualified and most unscrupulous people.” Isn’t it ironic that another King Charles now sits on the English throne as kakistocracy reigns supreme in his lost colony of the Republic of America.

Basically, in modern times, “kakistocracy” could refer to the advisers and government of the USA under President Donald J. Trump, including, but not limited to: J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick, Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller, Pete Navarro, Dan Scavino, Will Scharf, and Elon Musk. Missing on leave, but not forgotten, is the shameless Caroline Leavitt, the President’s pure white Christo-fascist Stepford clone Press Secretary. The President’s delusions now pass through Steven Cheung, his Director of Communications.

It is only when we see Canada’s current Prime Minister, the calm, intelligent, respectful and courageous Mark Carney stand up to the bullies that we can clearly understand the idiocy that has infected USA politics. In response to the latest tantrum thrown by the USA government into their current trade war with the world, Carney responded, “When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions.”

Let’s hope the midterm elections in the USA shift the control of their destiny back to an intelligent democracy loving population and away from the kakistrophic maggats. If not, we’re going to need a Canadian population truly ready to put their elbows up to protect the world. In defence of the Global Commons – from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico. from Gaza to Cuba to Venezuela.

This comic reality show has become a horror movie and we need to change the channel Immediately.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

 

 

 

Children in Nature

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For two decades, I have conducted a program called “Children in the Woods” for Ontario Nature. Ontario Nature launched its first Earth Summit for Youth in 2010 at Cedar Glen YMCA Centre in York Region. The Summit moved from the Cedar Glen site to many years on the wonderful Lake Simcoe location at Geneva Park near Orillia until Covid hit.  The Youth Summit for Mother Earth has risen like a Phoenix and found a new nest at renowned Camp Tawingo in Huntsville.

This year I will be delivering the same program, “Children in the Woods” to a new generation of youth leaders at Camp Tawingo. Whether it is woods, fields, ponds, rivers or lakes, like Lake Ontario, these youth are on fire to protect their present and future. Theirs is the passion that encouraged me to continue to keep speaking out for environmental policy sanity at a point when I was about to throw in the towel.

I had launched Global Perspectives: The Periwinkle Project in 1989 as a response to the messages of Our Common Future to pursue a path of sustainable development, and the World Meteorological Organization warnings about accelerating climate change. It was an appeal to educational institutions to make Environmental Literacy a key component of the 21st Century curriculum. Research real problems, search for real solutions.

The Ontario Teachers Federation had just approved a ten point agenda for the inclusion of environmental and social justice issues as a mandatory part of the school curriculum. Then came Mike Harris and his Common Nonsense campaign. This racist, eco-illiterate Premier dismantled all of the curriculum we had put in place to educate students to prepare for their future. His chief-of-staff, Guy Giorno, responding to a complaint that all critical thinking skills were being removed from the curriculum, allegedly said, “It is not our job to nurture critical thinkers; it is out job to train productive consumers!”

The Harris government dismantled all of their Environment Ministry staff who had been a fabulous education resource for schools seeking solid fact-based information for their projects. My contact at the Ministry was labelled a “hostile employee” for continuing to provide me with inside information until her dismissal.

I was more than angry – we were just beginning to raise awareness and turn the tide and we elected a colonial troglodyte to lead us. My wife said, “Don’t water the rocks.” I put all my slide shows and presentations away and went into my cave. And then I got a call from Ontario Nature to present at their First Annual Youth Leadership Summit. Cedar Glen was right around the corner from our home in Caledon.  I remember thinking, “Once more into the breach dear friends, once more.” 

The positive energy and enthusiasm of the ON leaders and the youth in attendance, reignited  the fire in my belly. If they were willing to pick up the torch, I was not going to stop fanning the flames. This is our  home, and the care and security of our home should be dominant in the hearts, minds and spirits of every citizen of this planet. We are a miracle. For those of us not living in Gaza or Sudan or Ukraine, where basic needs of survival are dominant, we who live in the fairy tale world of North America should be able to give our energies to something greater than our cell phones and streaming media. 

So, now I find myself about to head to Huntsville. In a world governed by Fords and Trumps. They keep us all in a constant state of fear with their taxpayer funded ads of “Protect Ontario”, and “Tariff Terror” messaging. Not quite the encouragement to our youth to fight for environmental literacy, social justice, economic security, and respect for the integrity of creation. Not on our current Ontario provincial government’s agenda due to developer greed. Reduced to the back burner of our federal agenda due to Trump’s Terrible Tariff War. But these youth refuse to give up. So, in my elder years, I will give you whatever you need to never give up.

From another old poker player passing on wisdom:

“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em,
Know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run.

You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table.
They’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done.’

And remember children, the deck is marked, and the house always wins … unless someone like us cares a whole awful lot. The way I see it.

Skid Crease, Caledon

The Naming Room, a satire

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There is a huge room hidden deep underground at the Mar a Lago Golf Resort in Florida. It is the infamous Presidential NAMING ROOM. The Orange House, the new official home and office of the President of the United States, rises above ground shielding the Naming Room from intelligent thought and international law.

On this particular day, the President had summoned his favourite “YES” team of adoring acolytes to redraw a map of the world. The Don called attendance. “J.D.?” ‘Praise be, my Lord,” responded J.D. “Pete?” “Hooah, Commander!” shouted Pete with an enthusiastic fist pump. “Howard?” Silence. “HOWARD?” Howard “Sorry, My Liege, I was just catching up on the latest articles in “Seventeen.”

Marker Pen Pictures | Download Free Images on Unsplash“I have already decided,” stated the President, “to rename the World.” The YES team nodded in rapturous agreement. “We are going to rename Earth “Kallstadt” after my German Grandfather and Grandmother.””Whoa!”” cried Howard. “I thought your family was Swedish.”

The Don snickered, “That’s what we told people to avoid offending our Jewish clients in the real estate industry in New York. Yep, our family has been liars ever since we emigrated here from Germany,”

“I’m uncomfortable with this meeting,” whined  Howard.
“Would you be more comfortable if I released the full Epstein flight logs?” The Don snapped.  Howard fell silent.

“Next,” said the President, We are going to rename Israel as Jesus Land. I haven’t told Bibi yet.”
“Hooah!” shouted Pete, realizing his born-again ChristoFascist dream had finally come true, but totally unaware of the consequences. Like, that he would be destroying the teachings of peace, love, and groovy.

“OK, and after we rename every water body in the world as Gulf, Ocean, lake, river stream, pond. slough as America,” crowed The Don, ” I have scheduled our invasion of Canada. We will take ungrateful Canada as the 51st State in a secret attack in the spring of 2027!”

There was a stunned silence from the YES team. “Our Lord,” they cried in unison. “but Canada breeds Black Flies in May and June, and Mosquitoes in July and August!” “And then, Our Most Holy, the temperature drops and our camouflage suits are set for deserts and not the multi-coloured northern forests of September and October!”

“What’s worse,” whimpered Caribbean St. James Island loving Lutnick, “the frost starts in November, and winter freeze-up sets in from December until March! Can’t we just get our oil from Venezuela? It’s the same very dirty, thick, heavy crude as from Alberta.  And we could claim Cuba as the 51st State and reopen all the Havana Casinos to our billionaire buddies.”

The Don put down his Magic Sharpie, blank map of the world, and opened a new container of phentermine, and paused. “We’ll invade on Memorial Day in May – it will be a celebration of our military might! It will be the BIGGEST SURPRISE INVASION IN THE HISTORY OF PLANET AMERICA!”

Pete fist pumped, J.D. prayed, and Howard wet himself.

***

It took 50 Back Hawk helicopters (and one Golden Eagle helicopter named by Sharpie Executive Order for the President) to evacuate the invading forces. It was a blueberry  pollinating, black fly infested day in May, 2027 when another attempt by the Republic of America failed to conquer Canada. A fleet of Swedish-Canadian Gripon jets over the Great Canadian Lakes kept the skies safe for us all. In a strange twist of fate, German made submarines patrolled our coastlines, protecting us from the disease infested USA aircraft carriers and destroyers.

Oh, Canada!

“Give us a Lake to Swim, and a Lake to Row
And call this Lake Ontario!
A lake to swim, a lake to row
Lake Ontari-ari-ario!”

I stood with my mom and watched Marilyn Bell come out of the water in 1954. I was eight years old. She was the first recorded person ever to complete the swim across lamprey eel infested Lake Ontario. This woman stands head and shoulders above the man with the Magic Sharpie. It will always be Lake Ontario – from First People’s history to the best of our colonial heroes. This is our place to stand and grow! The way I see it.

Skid Crease, Caledon

***

 

The Westerners

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Gee whiz, can you believe it Canada? Premiers Scott Moe (Saskatchewan) and Danielle Smith (Alberta) want to play ball with the Mad King of the South. Alberta wants to continue drinking bourbon and keep selling its tar sands oil to the USA, and Saskatchewan wants to keep pumping potash into American agribusiness. So much for a Team Canada approach to dealing with Trump’s Terrible Tariffs.

Keep in mind that both Alberta and Saskatchewan are part of the original “western alienation” movement that sprang from the federal government’s stance on national control of natural resources when the two areas became provinces in 1905. Based on their oil and cattle economies, Texas and Alberta seem made for each other, while Saskatchewan matches the oil pumping and dry land farming culture of some of the Great Plains states.

The majority of these US States and two provincial populations also tend to be socially conservative and fiercely supportive of individual rights and local resources over the collective national good. Politically, the old joke about “What happens when you cross a Texan with a Dakotan? Why, you get a conservative voting white, Christian Albertan!” rings all too true.

However, stereotyping is not helpful to constructive conversation. And considering my wife and I were married in Kananaskis, Alberta on the banks of the Bow River under the gaze of the Three Sisters mountain peaks, the separatists do not include some of my best friends. That and the memories of Grasslands National Park in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, as the most unique landscape on our cross-country trip for Canada’s 150th makes that province’s separation not open for discussion.

Canada is a unique coast to coast to coast experiment immersed in First People’s culture, colonial exploration and exploitation, resistance to American Republicanism, an outgoing, if sometimes superficial politeness, a sense of social justice, realization that we all “come from away,” and that “here” is where we choose to be. We are lobster, maple syrup, corn, wheat, beef and salmon. We are wood, hydro, uranium, aluminium, and steel. We are either paddling our canoe to safe harbours or dragging it back into the maelstrom.

To the fringe far right wing in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the young protesters in Quebec, it’s time to decide if you are on Team Canada, or time to get out of the canoe and sink or swim on your own. Swim south down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico!

This is no time for Lily dippers.The way I see it.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon