Shopping for Non-US products

 

Some of you may not be aware that when Trump launched his trade war on Canada there has been a huge rebellion in Canada on travelling to the U.S. and buying U.S, products here. Some I know are disposing of their US real estate and refusing to travel through the US to countries elsewhere. Usually inconvenient but nevertheless adhered to.

Canada is not a flag-waving country nor into the jingoism that characterises some countries. But there's a fierce patriotism nevertheless.

I feel for my dear US friends who suffer from this embargo but they understand our rage. Tourism and exports have been massively affected in the US. Hotels and inns are shuttering and other businesses (Liquor, farms, etc.) similarly affected. 

We are their biggest trading partner and it must hurt.

Meanwhile our prime minister is trotting around completing trade agreements with other countries.

I offer you this:

Mandarins from Spain (along with orange juice) - a huge deficit for Florida.

Many of us now buy only  cereal made in Canada. Goodbye Kelloggs.

Ketchup made in Canada. Goodbye Heinz.

And these heavenly biscuits (cookies) made in Australia. Real chocolate, organic. Note most US"chocolate" is actually "chocolate flavoured" whatever the hell that is.

I'm also noticing that everything I buy is much tastier, more flavourful, less sugar. Shelves are clearly marked in grocery stores and on line. "Canadian Made or Canadian sourced.|"

But for my US readers, I wish you this for your Thanksgiving. Fervently. With love.

Understated

 

I love my adopted country with all my heart. I was out on the beach today and I observed how discreetly we observe Canada Day which is today, July 1st. Little crests on polo shirts, grannies wearing red cardigans over white shirts, small maple leafs on beach chairs and umbrellas. Red and white beach balls, little girls in red and white pleated skirts and so on and dogs with small maple leafs on their collars.

We don't blast it from the rooftops. There's just this quiet pride in this beautiful country rolling from sea to shining sea and fact: our landmass is greater than the United States.

The land area of Canada is 3, 855, 103 square miles compared to America's 3, 794, 083, making Canada 1.6% larger that the States.

And we invented so many things - here's some you might not know about.

1. Paint roller
2. Garbage bags
3. Pager
4. Peanut butter
5. Road lines
6. Wonderbra
7. Search engine
8. Imax
9. The pacemaker
10. Basketball

Sometimes we're number one in the top countries in which to live but this year we're number two.

Round-up of the best countries to live in the world in 2022

• Switzerland.
• Canada.
• Norway.
• Singapore.
• Australia.

And oh yes, a picture of the beach from today. So many birds on the water following the capelin, a small fish (note granny in front of me in red cardie). It's been four weeks since I've been outside my door. I'm so grateful to be somewhat mobile.

Aftermath and Canada Day

Emotional experiences mingled with sadness, memory, fear of change, uncertain future (political, global, environmental) is stressful for many of us, not just elders.

I'll be interested to hear Grandgirl's take on it when she arrives to spend nearly 2 weeks with me tomorrow.

I know many are talking of the 'Good Ol' Days' and going back to them. I call BS on that. I turn a cold hard eye on my own past and would not revisit it for anything. Well maybe a quick revisit to the occasional short sweet times with my mother. But the rest of it? I was a religious refugee from the land of my birth, a victim of the judgement and condemnation of an unplanned pregnancy that would have shamed both my former husband and I along with my family in the eyes of the vicious Catholicism then. I've written about it many times. Escape to a welcoming Canada was our only option, far from the counting fingers of all around us. If we hadn't married, I would have been sentenced to a Magdalene Laundry in Killarney where my cousin was the nun in charge of it and have my child sold out from under me. Friends were caught in this horrific situation. They still bear the scars to this day.

More Good Ol'Days had endless repercussions in my new life in Canada. Isolation from family was a constant gnawing anxiety. Post partum depression after Daughter was born was something unrecognized then. I knew I was depressed. I had made only one friend who was supportive and loving. Father of Child couldn't understand what was going on and busied himself out at night partying and making new friends. I struggled on very much alone with Daughter and thought often of suicide, I was so utterly despondent and frightened by how my life had turned out. As my people say: "I'd lost the run of myself."

I had a supportive doctor for my baby and he recognized what was going on and told me it would pass. It was all hormonal, try and get out in the sunshine, make more of an effort, go swimming (our apartment building had a pool) or walking. I did. But I've never forgotten the awful gloom of that first year in a strange land, how I felt robbed of my family, my homeland, a supportive community, the familial joy that should have surrounded Daughter, a first great grand-child and grandchild to both our families.

So what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Stronger in the broken places.

I am grateful beyond measure to Canada, who accepted two young emigrants back in the day and helped us establish a life in this great country where I was able to blossom and grow and become my authentic self. This would not have happened in Ireland in that era where women were subservient to the church, surrounded by rattling rosary beads and the gossip of neighbours and who lost their careers upon marriage or unplanned pregnancies. Memories of any "transgressions" lived long and hard in the minds of neighbours and co-congregants ("Ah, she had to get married back in 1957, no wonder he runs around on her, who's to blame him?"). There was no moving on then. If your father was a communist, you were unemployable and judged so harshly one of my classmates joined an order of cloistered nuns to escape community condemnation, her brothers emigrated. I could write more. A very dark place it was then, finally coming into more sunlight now with abortion rights and gay marriage but still a long way to go.

Not that Canada is perfect, but it is a country, still, where health care is excellent and universal, where the social safety network is in place to help the least advantaged of our citizens and women are equal in the constitution and dying with dignity and legalized
marijuana make us the adult in a house where in the basement a screaming orange toddler with a lit match holds us all in terrified thrall to his tantrums.

Tender Moments

They're better when you don't expect them, aren't they?

I had this email from an ex today that brought soft tears to my eyes. He's not a writer by any means. And I do think he struggled with his words. My birthday is this Tuesday and he remembered it obviously but forgot the much clichéd "Happy Birthday" and just brought up some random memories about how long we've known each other (since high school). Nearly 60 years. What a privilege, that, to know someone nearly 60 years. And share children and miscarriages, a failed adoption and a beloved grandchild.

He wrote of our emigration, our expectations then and what an adventure it was.

And he closed with a beautiful, heartfelt phrase which I'll keep private.

And I thought of our voyage and wrote back to him of this, of all our dearies on that small tender pulling away from that vast ocean liner that held our incredibly young hopeful selves leaving all we had ever known behind. Forever.

And the Irish coastline fading away in the distance as we turned and faced the new land of Canada.

Good tears.

Good love.

Canada. Our Hearts Burst with Pride.

I woke up this morning feeling the most incredible sense of pride for my country and it's people.

As a portion of it burns and it's people run for their lives with only the clothes on their back. Like refugees in their own province.

As people lose everything and have to drive by their burning lives. Confused, scared and desperate to escape.

They do the unthinkable....

They stop...to help others.

They throw their own belongings to the ground to make room for those stranded on the side of the road.

They open their homes and businesses for strangers in need.

They walk for miles down a highway with a gas can while people are stuck in traffic asking 'who needs gas.'

They fight a monster for hours on end, all the while knowing they have no home to go home to.

Almost 90 000 incredible people were evacuated from ‪‎Fort McMurray‬ in less than 24 hours. With NOT one story of violence, looting or price gouging against their fellow man.

Instead they shared what little they had, made sure everyone had a safe place to sleep or a shoulder to cry on.

As a country we have won many medals, trophies and honors the world over and it always gives us a sense of pride.

But this...this situation...there is no prize here. No medals coming for these people. The real heroes don't wear capes.

To the incredible people of Alberta and the entire country coast to coast, I Thank You. For reminding us all what it means to be an amazing and a true Canadian.

Dee Brun Gow

And - so many animals on this flight out of Fort Mac, they shared cabin space with humans.

Photo courtesy CBC

Back in the Saddle.

I am sick and tired of this depraved and senseless world we live in. I look at the statistical map of mass killings in the US and think: no one does anything, those who are elected to serve and protect only protect the gun lobbies, the NRA. 'We the people' is a fallacy, truly. A sop to the masses.

I look at the murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada well over 1,000 and counting just about daily and think: no one gives a shyte. Our man Harper focuses on Niqabs and the wearing of them at citizen oath-taking ceremonies and the troops rally around that particular flag and sends him skyrocketing in the polls,(our election looms shortly)which says a whole pile about our electorate and their hidden prejudices and women hatred. Forgetting, of course, that not too long ago Xtian nuns were so garbed and in some cases hidden behind screens even from their parents, looking at you Carmelites.

I predicted, way back months ago, that Trump and Harper would be the kings of North America. Two first class manipulators, millionaires, man-beasts. Both held in thrall to the worst of capitalism and fundamentalism, slurping at the troughs of oil, the standards of industrial militarism held high, death to the brownies, the blackies, the other than Xtian belief systems. Not forgetting, in Harper's case, overt references to the "Old Stock" Canadians - i.e. the founding-rampaging-death-to-all-aboriginals "fathers". In Harperland your legitimate citizenship can be revoked if you don't behave. Even if you were born here. Stasi-land, Harper style. And I haven't gone into the spying network he has set in place to monitor the "New Stock" citizenry like yours truly and presumably those pesky First Nations people with their protests and marches against clear cutting and unbridled oil-derrick hoistings.

I backed away, consciously, several years ago from political commentary, it was frying up my brain. But it seems that lately the corruption, callousness and trampling of rights is breathtaking in its audacity and horror. I am compelled to vent.

Terrorism as 'out there' no longer exists, if it ever did.

Terrorism, in many forms, is right at our own front doors.

Bang Bang

Now and again my head explodes with the devastation inflicted on our little planet. By the greed for money. And the secrecy behind the money.

Seems like in Harperland (our country's not even recognizable as Canada anymore due to the arrogance and criminality of our prime minister, Stephen Harper) spends $16,000,000 of tax payer funds promoting filthy oil extraction and shaky dangerous pipelines. Oh yeah, he also rigged the voting last election. Prosecution? Are you joking? And bailed out one of our senators, a Mister Mike Duffy, from his false expense reporting. To the tune of $90,000, hiding behind the skirts of the House Speaker. I could go on. You get the picture of our emperor.

Then for good measure I read, from reputable sources - now, what is reputable you might well ask in this shoddy world we've created - that the devastating effects of the Fukushima blowout are being withheld from us simple peasants. 14,000 in North America and Canada already dead, foetal abnormalities and child cancers to come, not to mention the mortality and cancers of the Japanese people. Business as usual, of course.

And do you, like me, wonder if the pensions held in trust by our governments are already plundered and gone, one thread connecting to another in the economic melting pot that our governments dip into like it's the candy jar? And no accountability. I always beware when I hear the word "transparency" tossed around by these yokes. It never, ever is. My friend, R.J. Adams sums it all up quite beautifully in his post.

And that the Koch Brothers, those stellar saintly profiteers, the archest of arch conservatives they, are buying up USian Newspapers, something to do with their own rightwing agendas you think?

I needed to rant. It's good for the gas build-up in my brain needing the release of words. I'm sparing you the 100 other pages of derring-do that nest in my skull. This is enough for now.

As a counter balance to all of that, I bring you the view from my deck this morning, fog lifting like a curtain. All is well, just for today. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Do we still have free speech? Have they redefined "freedoms" while my back was turned? They did? Well, I never....

Terrorized by Old Age

I have several friends, all single, who are frantically planning for the time they will retire. I should add that they all work in the private sector and do not benefit from the enviable pensions paid to retired government-type employees. They frankly envision a future of tiny tins of catfood doled out carefully.

Interestingly enough, my married/partnered friends have no such fears.

The ALONE status of the singles has them planning to pay off mortgages and RRSP themselves into deprivation. For now. All this when they are over 60, some well over, and finding the speed of the on-the-job young 'uns nipping at their heels alarming.

Did I miss that gene? I occasionally worry about my vulnerable status (will I have no money in another 5 years?). But worry is useless energy so it doesn't last too long.

But I do rail against a system that keeps artists of all types in poverty and particularly makes it so difficult for single parents (mainly female) to stockpile savings of any magnitude during their working lives. The patriarchy along with childcare responsibilities has ensured very few women will make what men earn in their lifetimes. Statistics show that upon divorce, a father will improve his lifestyle dramatically, whereas the lifestyle of the now single mother and her family will deteriorate. I experienced that as a single mother with two kids.

The sadness of the afore-mentioned frantic planners is that the stress and strain can take an enormous toll on their health and sometimes they don't make it to that magic Canada Pension Plan age.

The only time, after all, that we have, is NOW. So why fret and worry as the song said?It is a form of madness and steals our days like nothing else.

I knew I could not survive financially in Toronto and that was an intrinsic part of my decision to move out here to the edge of the Atlantic. Cities are expensive places to live, especially for elders without pensions.

And I'm also extremely aware that we have a damn good safety net in Canada, such as OAS.

Do we all just want too much when we retire? Endless travel and bonbons and golf courses and spas?

What exactly do we need? Do we have it all and just don't know it?

New World English

~~~My treacle/fruit/wonderloaf~~~

I had to learn a brand new English when I began to live in Canada. I think I've basically assimilated now but for a while I was completely lost. Pinafores and jumpers (jumpers and sweaters here) just the starting course. Don't even talk culottes and bonnets and boots.

It has taken me a while but I'm still tripped up now and again. There should be a dictionary.

I was baking a loaf last night and remembered my mother doing much the same thing. Her saviour in Ireland for baking cakes was grease-proof paper. You lined your cake pans with it. When I came here first and wanted to bake I couldn't believe grease-proof paper was nowhere to be seen racking the grocery shelves as I did, asking store managers who viewed me as deranged. They had never heard of such a thing and guided me to the wax paper. Well, I used it but it just didn't have the, let's say detachment, of the stoic old greaseproof. It often wound up strangling cakes and breads and it kinda turned me off baking as it left an icky taste where the paper touched the mix.

Imagine my surprise when I was at a friend's a few years back and she was baking a cake and she had greaseproof!!! I just about screamed in excitement. I picked up the box. It was called "parchment paper". Parchment!! Lawdy lawd. I couldn't wait.

Now I bake a lot of the time with this lovely parchment. I wish I'd known sooner. And I can also use treacle again - now that I know it's called molasses here.

Alter Ego

I just finished reading a rather long but engrossing book. "The Calling" by Inger Ash Wolfe. Not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, it is over 500 pages of unputdownable suspense.

The two main characters are a 61 year old police chief with a bad back and her 87 old mother who lives with her.

I scooped this review on the net and it puts my thoughts into words so well I just couldn't improve upon it.

But the really interesting thing about this book is that it was penned by a famous male author under the above pseudonym and I would never have found out about either of these if I hadn't listened to Writers and Company on CBC.

I won't disclose his name here but a quick web search will do it for you if you're so inclined.

It's such a joy to find books that are unashamedly Canadian (the story is based in small town Ontario) and also so unremittingly good. And are about older people doing their jobs, with interesting backstories: broken marriages, remote adult children, etc.

I love a good yarn.  And bonus, a yarn behind the yarn.

Of cards and saints and a bottle of rum.

Boy, I cleaned up at cards tonight. I won the boobie prize - 3 rather nice dishtowels - and also the door prize - a bottle of rum.  As to the boobie, it is a prize awarded to the loser player of the evening. I was stuck at a table for 11 rounds with useless cards. I so want to be lucky in love to compensate for this. 

I've written all about my weekly 45 card game here, if you care to know more about it.

There was much talk of Ireland as one of my cast members was there as well as myself. In addition, there were others who had gone to Ireland over the summer on different expeditions, one had gone with her son, a priest, and they had visited everywhere that St. Patrick had been to convert the heathens and pagans back in the day. Even to the spot where he had banished the snakes.

"Oh, you must miss Ireland so much!" said one of my partners. You'd be amazed at the amount of envy I get for being so fortunate as to be born in the sacred homeland.

"Well, I miss my family of course, " said  I, "But I don't miss Ireland. Though I do like to visit."

He was appalled.

"But it's so perfect! Everyone loves Ireland!"

"Well," said I, never one to hold anything back and it's too late to learn now isn't it, "Back in the day Ireland wasn't very good to me."

Gobsmacked doesn't begin to describe the expression on his face.

"As a matter of fact," said I, continuing to never let well enough alone,  "Canada has been so extraordinarily good to me I can't even begin to count the ways. "

Hire me if you ever need to silence a room.

And if you're up for it, we'll have more on all that another time.

Thanks for the topic suggestion MarciaMay!

 

Thankful

One of my knitting hampers, I just love these colours.

 

 

Here on Canadian Thanksgiving I am thankful for my family. For my daughters, for my granddaughter. For my siblings who are all alive, though some of us are in slight disrepair. For extended family and bloodlines that span a goodly portion of our globe.

I am thankful for living in this wonderful land, my chosen land of many, many years. My gratitude knows no bounds for the life I've been given here amongst tolerance and equality far beyond the country of my birth.

I am thankful for a life that lets me breathe in the clean air from the ocean, that allows me my artistic expression - to write and create - and partake of the riches of land and sea.

I am thankful for dear friends who walk with me through thick and thin and celebrate my victories and hold my hand when I'm feeling defeated or lonely.

I am thankful for the comfort of blogland and my blessed blogfamily, where I get to throw out my thoughts and ideas (and dry run some stories and poems and photos) and sound off with occasional whingery and outrage.

So yes, today, along with all of the above - I celebrate our true north strong and free - thank you Canada.

Bubble

Dateline: Near Montreal.

There's something about a long road trip. As if one lives in a bubble, a balloon, floating above one's normal life, detached.

It's even more enhanced when accompanied by a beloved companion who shares her quirks and eccentricities and her rich imagination and who is also extraordinarily well read and informed.

We toss around all sorts of ideas, comment on the ridiculousness of human existence and this insatiable want that seems to overcome so many people, this desire for "more" that drives unjust wars and extreme poverty all over this tiny planet. The sad materialism of so many evidenced by ridiculously large vehicles speeding past us, Hummers, SUVs and their ilk, often with just one driver. Usually miserable too, if the face is the mirror of the soul. Nobody sings, we observe, except us. What is a road trip without singing?

I talk to the waitress at the wonderful bistro where we had lunch today, a wee bit off the road just before Quebec City. Turns out she owned the restaurant that served a heavenly beef bourginonne. And the menu was handwritten at the beginning of every week featuring 3 daily choices each day (soup, entree, dessert and coffee all for $9.99). She asked where we were from and where we were going.

She said: "When my last baby left home, for a whole year I accompanied my husband, a long haul driver, across the entire country, from coast to coast and my favourite place was Newfoundland!"

I said to her, "It's a shock how beautiful Newfoundland is, it is Canada's best kept secret!"

"My dear," she said,"We live in the most beautiful country in the world, don't we?"

And I nodded, feeling quite emotional at sharing this brief and wonderful moment with a Quebecois.

Afterwards, Grandgirl said to me that she finds this type of understated patriotism so much more meaningful than flag waving and anthem singing and hands on hearts and swearing allegiance and pledges.

"It's so heartfelt, so real, it makes me so proud to be a Canadian!"

Amen baby!

It's All Been Said

A true Canadian hero, Jack Layton, has left us.

I just want to add:

Thank you, Jack.

July Month

{And I post the above graph just to show how USians have been consistently lied to about universal health care costs.}

I remember that expression from my childhood. My grandparents would say "July month", rather than "month of July". And this is the Newfoundland useage also.

There's something poetic about it. To my ear anyway.

I had many medical appointments today, from 8.30 a.m. to 2.30 with a narrow break for lunch. I was sitting in Starbucks with my netbook (I've been having awful problems with the turbo stick and its so-called "upgrades" here at home - don't get me started) so I availed of the chance to post responses to my blog comments, check my email for client payments and my daily email from my childhood friend, etc. when it hit me. As it does now and again. Everything was free, down to the emergency glucose pills for my purse to exercise equipment to books, to consultations - some lasting more than an hour. As in FREE. And not a death panel in sight.

How lucky I am to live in this country, this True North strong and free, I thought. Even though our prime minister Harper (aka Bush-lite) would have it very different given his druthers. And we are all carefully watching those druthers.

When I see in the wee country south of us druthers are being yanked left right and centre as the debt deadlines come marching home with the trillions in treasure blown into the cavernous pockets of the giant industrial military machine.

And with Harper in charge can we be far behind I ask myself as he ramps up the prisons and the fighter planes and gives away our water and mining rights.

So, I'll enjoy this universal health care while I can. And never, ever take it for granted.

Canadian Health Ministers

~~~~~click to enbiggen~~~~

It's a good feeling to post good news.

It's a good feeling to see how much government gender representation has changed - from zero female ministers when I was a young woman to this photo posted in today's paper.

There's a Canadian health minister conference in St. John's right now. 12 provinces and territories are represented.

7 of the cabinet ministers are women. 5 are men.

Yay Canada!

Happy Teens

Teens happiest people in Canada

So said the headline and in hanging out with the grandgirl who will be sixteen this year, I've observed her happiness and the happiness of her friends.

It has astonished me. When I recall my teenage angst, and my daughters' for that matter, she presents a far different picture than ours.

Moodiness is rare. She has a load of friends and they all hang together in a large group. Most evident amongst them all is their marvellous sense of humour, how relaxed they are, how accommodating and inclusive they are of older and younger people, how engaged both politically and environmentally. How talented and versatile they are and how spontaneously they will perform a skit, or dance or hug and comfort each other .

I thought this was all limited to her good fortune, her sunny nature and that of her friends whom I should mention are of both genders and all ethnicities.

Until I read this:

In fact, 96 per cent of Canadians aged 12 to 19 reported they were highly satisfied with life in 2009. That's compared to 94 per cent of teens who reported either being satisfied or very satisfied with their lives in 2008. Each year the Canadian Community Health Survey asks Canadians to rank their life satisfaction, and the data shows that teens are getting more satisfied every year.

And this:

According to the experts, teens are happy because their parents (the baby boomers and gen Xers) are really good at being moms and dads. These parents have put a ton of resources into kids, from school and extracurricular programs, to counsellors and sport and recreation opportunities.

Read more about it here.

This more than anything I've read in the last while gives me hope - the real kind. These kids are all aware of the mess we're leaving them and they're still happy!

Gee, it makes me want to start all over again!
Wait!
Nah!

Tax on the Poor

I've no idea about other countries, but here in Canada this whole lottery business is completely out of control, both provincially and federally.

I am astonished that people buy these tickets and call it "fun". You might as well flush your hard-earned dollars down the toilet. I've seen friends throw a couple of fifties across the counter and get into a frenzy as they open the instant wins and carefully stow the "draw later" tickets away. I see them whoop to heaven when they win $50 and roll their eyes when I tell them they've spent $20/week for the last ten years to attain this huge prize. $5,200 to win $50! My logical mind makes me a huge spoilsport, right?

What would you do with all those millions if you won? I ask them curiously.

They would scatter it about on stuff for themselves, stuff for their kids. It's all about the stuff, you see.

There have been many protests here about these government run cash cows. No one can get a fix on the enormous profits they engender and on where it is spent. And of course powerful lobbies from the private sector are loud in their promotions of this type of "harmless" fun.

It is gambling of course, but no one wants to call it that. Gambling with odds that would not be allowed in Vegas or in our Native run casinos.

Gambling that targets the poorest of us with the big ads and ecstatic winners on TV. It is so easy to win and get that house and the 60" screen and the 100' swimming pool.

But the reality is far, far different for if you do win the odds are you're going to lose it all anyway as these did.

And the greatest sales of lottery ticket co-incide with the monthly welfare and pension cheque cashing.

The government distributes as winnings 48% of the total sales of these tickets and the other 52%? "Administration,"that handy catch-all and oh, erm, hospitals and, let's see, sports programmes.

And no one has won the following jackpot so it will be up to $95 million next week. Which means, oh, $1,340,000,000 kept by the government for administration, maybe as a downpayment on the billion dollar G20 summit. Notice how in these kinds of reports they invariably tell you about winners? CBC, the reporting agency, is government-run and could be a beneficiary of all this lottery largesse.

The $50 million Lotto Max jackpot is still up for grabs after no winning ticket was drawn Friday night for the grand prize.

However 15 Maxmillion prizes of $1 million each were won by ticket buyers in British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

With no big winner for a second straight week, the June 18 draw will offer prizes worth a record $95 million, including the $50 million jackpot and 45 prizes of $1 million.

The number of Maxmillions will include those not won in the June 11 draw in addition to those generated from new sales for next Friday's draw.

In February, two tickets split a $50 million Lotto Max draw — one in Quebec and the other in British Columbia. And Last November, Marie Fontaine of Pine Falls, Man., pocketed a $50 million Lotto Max prize.

Read more here.

Collateral Damage Statistics

Marvellous article in The Telegram here today about war. Specifically the Afghan war. As any regular reader knows, I hate the word 'war' when a more accurate description would be 'invasion'. But I digress.

We all like to imagine our old soldiers proudly marching in annual parades but the truth is far different. The articles goes on to discuss the after-affects of war on its soldiers apart from the obvious: the senseless deaths of comrades, the horrific injuries, the shattered illusions. It talks about the lingering damage to society created by the soldier long after combat is over and her/his military career has ended.

An intense study of the aftermath of military engagement was conducted from 1983 to 2007.

There were:
1710 deaths in the period.
289 were suicides
384 were traffic deaths - 75 of those alcohol related.
186 of all the deaths, when further examined, were the result of excessive drinking.
374 deaths were of cancer.

Combat only accounted for 70 fatalities, less than 5% of the deaths.

The continuing effect on Canada, and particularly in Newfoundland which has the highest percentage of any province in Canada in the military, is unimaginable.

Extrapolate all those numbers outwards and the toll on the USA will be in the millions. MILLIONS of deaths outside of direct combat. Deaths on the streets and in the homes of Americans. Deaths that often take further collateral damage in the shape of their own families or innocent stranger-victims.

And we're not even talking about the millions and millions who are already 'merely' injured. We're talking collateral death long after military engagement.

Brought to you by Spring, Serving Canadians for Thousands of Years.

I remember last year.
How startled, no, delighted,
No, ecstatic, yes
I was.

To see you dancing,
No, laughing, no, giggling,
No, exuberant, yes
There.

Beneath the tree,
Amongst last year’s
Exhausted leaves.
Proud.