Do you remember?

 

 Do you remember?

A lot of wonderful conversations begin with a question. Do you remember? Strangely, two people who were in the same place at the same time often remember two different things. I never believed it until they proved it to me beyond any shadow of a doubt. Sadly, we tend to use what we remember to shape the future.

I watched a video showing a Postman some years back. Do any of you remember the postman? It was a person who walked from house to house delivering the mail. He had a simple job, but everyone knew him. He also knew the entire community and could tell you if Mrs. Johnson two blocks down is doing OK or needs help. He knew who was in love with whom or if someone was having an affair. I still remember that we all had a mailbox by the door and if we missed the mail carrier, we checked the box over and over.

Another was the milkman. Most people didn’t have a fridge and fresh milk was delivered to the “Milk shoot”. Another place where people met was the Barber Shop or its equivalent for ladies. This was the place where people waited together and discussed local politics and important stuff. If you wanted to know who has the best chance of becoming the next Mayor, you went for a haircut.

Every few blocks, there was a grocery store, a butcher shop, and a vegetable store. No one in their right mind would dream of hitching up horses or starting a car to shop for everyday needs. Bigger places had specialty stores, like a candy store, sewing, and notions or even a clothing store, often together with a seamstress and a tailor. There was a shoemaker, mostly for repairs, but he could “build” a new pair of shoes.

The guys met during the day at the garage or mechanic shop and later at the tavern. Money was at the local bank, not on a plastic card, and the Post Office was a serious government institution, not a tool of Amazon. Most places had a local newspaper or two, plus a community bulletin board. The newspaper had comments not only about local events but also about the rest of the country and the world. They reflected local opinions and sometimes formed them. Their integrity was important. That’s why often there were two or more.

Rightly or wrongly, people were often attached to their family groups. One cared about the family name. On Sunday, they would show up at church wearing their “Sunday’s Best” and marched in to the sound of bells. That was a community. After service, friends would frequent local restaurants or coffee shops, and plans were made for the coming week.

It was families, communities, towns, and cities that formed societies. I remember from history lessons that the Crowsnest Pass was known for miner’s strikes and for being a Red Place. Here was a center of the Communist Party of Canada, and some street names commemorated it.  

Strangely, history doesn’t remember this beautiful place as a revolution cradle but as a place where people fought and won human rights. It was a place that broke prohibition.

Things began to change. We started to value money more than community. Didn’t want to pay ten cents more for an item available in a store close to home or pay more for a car made in Canada. All the little businesses went under to be replaced by big business from somewhere else. Each time there was a saving to begin with and less service or community. The factories moved overseas and you could no longer get shoes made for you. You couldn’t get freshly baked bread either.

Took a while to realize that all those little business owners were friends and neighbours and they moved to city jobs. The streets became empty and parking lots got bigger. For a while, big stores employed friends and neighbours, but they went under as things came by mail. All that time, fewer people around us could make a decent living and others did in other countries. They came as tourists to look at our ruined communities.

We paid a heavy price for getting more for less and shopping where the lowest price is the law. We pay less, but we have no service. We don’t know the store owners and they don’t come to our church anymore. Most places don’t have a little newspaper discussing local affairs and the average wage is barely enough to live on. Hardly any of our kids live close to home and when they get holidays, they “travel” making other countries rich. We end up in Care Homes where someone counts how many bites we eat. Everywhere is “self serve” and we chose which garbage we will throw out. The packaging, delivery of what we buy and the marketing cost more than the items. Our average income ends up in the landfill heap while the quality of life diminishes. In the city, you don’t even know who lives three doors down.

I miss the postman and the neighbours who used to drop by for coffee. I loved knowing my neighbours and paying for their work as they paid for mine. Now I see us moving to work from home. Immediately home prices go up.

We allowed the market to rule and depleted our resources, poisoned our environment, and isolated ourselves.

I think that the experiment of governments running everything (Communism,) didn’t work. The experiment of the Market dictating everything (pure Capitalism,) didn’t work either. The natural way of family, community, and a little bit of both is the best. We do best living in the balance.

It’s time to reevaluate how we want to be and head that way. It won’t work unless we decide that it’s the best and believe that we can do it. Like all things, it will start with a seed and grow if we help it.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Aged and Compromised, in a pandemic.

 

Aged and Compromised, in a pandemic.

I live in paradise and don’t crave travelling or any other modern temptations. All my working years I managed on less, paid for a pension, and planned for the “golden years”. Now I reside in a little home in the forest on the Canadian Rocky Mountains, in a historical little town that provides what I need. The pension is enough for food and taxes, a working vehicle, and health needs not covered by our Universal Health Care program.

I paid cash for my education, lived modestly, and raised two self-sufficient kids. I took no government assistance like unemployment and regularly donated much more than the taxes consider a write-off and I still do. As I am getting older, I need some help with difficult tasks so I save to pay for it. Never went on a cruise or even visited my birth country. I am a happy Canadian who loves the snow on the mountains and the Alpine meadows in the summer.

Not in my wildest dreams did I consider having to put up with a killing pandemic in my old age, but if it’s here, I am willing to do my best and not only survive but help to curb the spread, even if it’s inconvenient. Took my vaccinations, wore a mask the few times I went out and promoted responsible behaviour. Here I ran into snags.

I live in a world of people who are motivated by reasons that I don’t consider important. Some believe that they can wish the reality to be different and want all of us to do the same. They want to “enjoy life” and if compromised people like me will die as a result, so be it. Others simply resent anyone telling them what to do, regardless of the reasons. I understand both but wish to stay alive and enjoy what I worked and saved for.

The campaign to risk death is not just an opinion expressed by a few but a well-organized and financed effort backed up with lawyers, organized public protests, marketing, and politicians motivated by political donations. For two years, while I sat in what is almost house arrest, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out who has an actual reason to promote against safety and responsible behaviour. I finally got a clue.

It came from a film published after the second world war. It is a 10-minute film called Disabled Holocaust. Apparently, the Nazis before and during the war exterminated disabled people and others who were not contributing to the economy. Sadly, it even included their own maimed soldiers from the fight in Stalingrad. The program was secretive to avoid public outcry. The liberation soldiers exposed it, including Canadians. Fifty years ago, there were still a considerable number of survivors of eugenics.

We may consider this a weird, ugly phenomenon that existed in prewar Germany, but we have our own skeletons to deal with. Eugenics was considered “science” here and in other enlightened countries. Alberta and BC had a program to sterilize humans of lesser value (Handicapped) right until 1972. I remember the news discussing the end of the program and the people who witnessed that it was not always voluntary. I knew a person who was rumoured to have been a victim of the program.

We live in a wonderful country amongst people whom the world calls nice. Yet prewar Germany was known to be a most civilized country and their advanced science still serves us today. NASA became what it is using ex-German scientists. The Russian technological advancements were built around other German inventors. Can nice people be cruel to their own? Ask the veterans who proudly display stickers that say, “Lest we forget.”

I walk away thinking that I may have found a reason why some mystery people are organizing and financing a campaign against vaccinations. COVID is a light flulike sickness for healthy strong people and a natural killer for those who cost money to health care and possibly increase taxes.

What people don’t consider is the reason why we take care of those who need help. It’s as easy as understanding how insurance works. You don’t even have to consider Christian or religious morality. We will all get old someday. Many of us may find ourselves disabled at some point in life. The wealth we accumulate may dissipate fast if some conditions change. Best financial planning is not guaranteed to save us from all possible events in life. If we are thinking as Hitler did, we should consider what his end was like and how he is remembered. Christ advocated helping the needy, not being greedy, and billions of people follow him thousands of years later.

Others may seed weeds amongst our crops. China is keeping itself almost COVID-free. Could they be sabotaging the west? I don’t know, but someone is financing the efforts to fight against vaccinations and to open the economy prematurely again and again. The pandemic would have been just a memory by now if we tried harder and were less concerned about profits. I am not talking about restaurant owners but those with shares in large Pharmaceuticals.

COVID is stealing my retirement years and exposing some negative aspects of our society, perhaps for good reasons. On the other hand, some of what is happening may be a good thing. It is showing how we undervalued some workers who should be paid more. Now, with trucking problems, it shows that we should grow and make things at home and pay what it’s worth. The governments are learning that teachers and nurses are important for the well-being of society and the economy. We are learning that care homes shouldn’t be a revenue generator but necessary social service.

Below our gaze, there is a new generation. For the first time, the young are teaming up with the old going against the dividing forces for no less than a better world for all.

What happens when safety and freedom conflict?

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Coal versus Water. Who wins?

 

Coal versus Water. Who wins?

I first heard about the Crowsnest Pass in University history lectures. The coal miners made the news by organizing some bitter strikes demanding human living conditions and there was a mention of the women of the Pass being very brave standing by their men. Archived Calgary Herald editions showed pictures. Much later, after coal mining stopped, I found myself seated next to an elderly woman in Chris’ Restaurant. She wanted to talk.

I expected her to be upset over the ending of coal mining, but the opposite was true. She lived her whole life in Coleman and she told me the horrors of coal mining. She lost the men of her family to something called black lung. The “Laurentian Elites” Canadian owners of the mines mistreated her. She cried, describing how she worked so hard to do the wash by hand and it would all turn black while they did some process in the tipple. Her life was centered around fluctuating coal prices that she was expected to absorb by not feeding the kids.

I was reminded of her story by letters to the last Pass Herald of 2021. There was a doctor who treated the victims of coal. Because he used handouts from rich coal mining companies to obtain hospital equipment, he was deemed an untrusted source. I remember him coming from home at night to save my life when I had double pneumonia.

There was a letter from a person who used to work on the tipple in Coleman. He blamed everything under the sun on the loss of coal mining. Car dealerships left. I remember when the big car manufacturers closed down little town dealerships all over, not just here. He talked about the closing of grocery stores. I asked the owner of the last grocery store why he was closing down. He said that people here were shopping in Walmart and Costco expecting him to be a convenience store with big store prices. “I am tired of playing this game,” he told me.

I asked around how come we don’t have wind power generation here in the mountains. I was told that whenever businesses expressed interest in opening in the Pass, our local councils chased them out. You tell me if it’s true.

Now the talk of the town is “we want coal back.” A foreign company moved the golf course and donated some money so everyone is fighting for coal. “I love Pass coal” signs are everywhere. If any of you want some I have a big pile here.

The West was opened up not because of coal but because of farming and a threat that the US will take it if it wasn’t populated quickly. Canadian agents went around the world looking for immigrant farmers “with strong backs.” South Alberta had land but was too dry for cultivation. Mormons from the US who knew how to build and use irrigation canals were recruited and did green up the land. It was later that coal became a commodity and was discovered in Lethbridge and the Crowsnest Pass. Oil and gas came later.

We have all of it. The actual fight now is not between coal lovers and a few ranchers situated above mediocre coal reserves, but about water versus strip mining. We love to accommodate those who romanticize the days of coal mining, but the most valuable resource we have here is the Crowsnest and adjacent mountains water. We will not see a government that’s lacking popularity take the side of 6000 people against one-third of the province.

I could be wrong, but I heard that there are people who own and sell water rights to the folks down river and that they are taxed by the government. I am not against or for coal, but a little bird told me that water is very important. Water wars are going on in the world and there will be more to come. I have been in wars and I didn’t like it. I also know that those who cause wars are most often not those who fight them.

In my opinion, the government should make sure that the guardians of the water, us,  receive proper benefits for doing so from those who enjoy it. We are here in the playground of southern Alberta. With some compensation, we could develop the place to be a world-class tourist destination that will outlast any temporary mining industry. We are fighting for our survival and we need help. That should be more than some philanthropic handouts.

Right now we have trails, lakes, and minor tourist attractions. With some imagination, the little historical towns can become the biggest historical landmark in Canada. All aspects of the place, restaurants, movie theatres, hotels, and places to shop could be made into a historical marvel better than Heritage Park and Calloway Park put together. It’s all here and we could add fireworks shows every last day of the month. We could buy and move Heritage acres to a location where people will see it. Above it all, the people who don’t want to change could be put on display and live out their dream of living in the past.

Businesses under the right leadership can import handmade goods from all over the world supporting poor, less advanced places and old-style craftspeople. What we need is seed money and political will. That can be done with a well-organized marketing plan.

Imagine a historical main street with horses and buggies, a windmill grinding flower for your stone oven bread, and young page boys selling old-looking Pass Heralds printed by a widow on an old press. People speaking foreign languages staying in a hotel by mineral springs and a steam locomotive pulling a pioneer train. A native cultural centre where you can learn how to smoke tan hides and smell the sweet aromas from pre-European days.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.