A chorus of boos

Sinéad O'Connor died a year ago.

The news at that time focussed on the uproar following her appearance on Saturday Night Live, where she tore up a photo of the Pope.  She got booed at Madison Square Gardens shortly afterwards - at a tribute for that renowned protester Bob Dylan, of all people.

Now, the reports in July 2023 were all about how ahead of her time she was in decrying the prevalence of child abuse and sexual exploitation by the Catholic Church -- years before it was seen as a widespread problem. True enough, I guess. This was in 1992, but I'd been watching CODCO, the Newfoundland-based comedy sketch series that aired on CBC between 1988 and 1993, where Andy Jones took several swipes at reports of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, in light of the Mount Cashel Orphanage scandal of 1989, so the sort of abuse Sinéad O'Connor was calling out was not unknown - just not widely acknowledged.

Still, it seems Sinéad took the brunt of the attacks - she was a woman, after all.  Bob Dylan and Andy Jones, as men, certainly weren't spared criticism, but somehow, it never got quite as vitriolic, did it?

Spotify startled me, some time after O'Connor's death, by sending me this song by Kris Kristofferson, who approached Sinéad O'Connor on the Madison Square Gardens stage, having been sent to escort her off, and instead said, quietly, "Don't let the bastards get you down." 

I'm singing this song for my sister Sinéad 

Concerning the god awful mess that she made 

When she told them her truth just as hard as she could 

Her message profoundly was misunderstood 

There's humans entrusted with guarding our gold 

And humans in charge of the saving of souls 

And humans responded all over the world 

Condemning that bald headed brave little girl 

And maybe she's crazy and maybe she ain't 

But so was Picasso and so were the saints 

And she's never been partial to shackles or chains 

She's too old for breaking and too young to tame 

It's askin' for trouble to stick out your neck 

In terms of a target a big silhouette 

But some candles flicker and some candles 

fade 

And some burn as true as my sister Sinéad 

Summer and smoke

This morning, for the first time this year, I hesitate, and decide not to crack open the windows.  There is a growing wildfire near Sooke, a community west of here, and while the city is bright with summer sunshine, I feel the dryness in my mouth that signals the presence of smoke, something that has become sadly seasonal here.

My mind drifts back, like smoke, to the two summers when my mother was a "hostel parent".  These were the summers when I was 7 and 8; Demeter had discovered that an affordable and comfortable summer holiday could be had, if she took over, for a few weeks, the running of one of the smaller and more remote international hostels in the great Albertan parks of Jasper and Banff.

I have about half a dozen memories of the hostels and enough time has passed that I can't readily distinguish which memories are of Jasper, and which of Banff.  I remember an early morning breakfast and seeing my mother drop the corpse of a mouse into the wood burning stove.  

There was a creek running by one of the hostels, where Double Leo Sister and I would play and paddle in the afternoons.  We were equipped with emergency whistles and told to blow on them if we needed help.  At the shrilling of them, Demeter would come running, banging a pot, to scare off bears, only to hear:  "Wasses, Mummy!!"  (We were terrified of being stung.)  By the end of the summer, we had become the girls who cried "Wasses", and Demeter decided the bears could have us.  (I've told this story before, haven't I?)

Demeter, questioned this summer, can only remember "Coral Creek".  There is a Coral Creek Canyon, quite far to the southeast of Jasper - and Demeter believes the hostel was in the southern part of Jasper National Park.  However, there is also a Corral Creek to the east of Jasper, past Hinton, Alberta, and another Corral Creek, nearly at Banff and less than five kilometres south of Lake Louise. Perhaps this other Corral Creek was the location of the Banff hostel where Demeter was a hostel parent.  None of these places appear to have hostels now.

Nothing left but distant memories.  I'm pretty sure that the Jasper hostel was where we were the summer I was seven, because my father came to see us there, and he left the family the summer I was eight, although I was never told.  

The second hostel was, I believe, near a railway track, because a family with girls roughly my age came to stay, and we children were at the railway track when a train came roaring through.  Our rather feather-brained dog, a poodle/Scottish-terrier cross, stood still on the tracks, gazing at the oncoming train, as it blasted its horn.  Too terrified to try to retrieve her, I tried to run in the other direction to avoid seeing her crushed, while the other girls, held on to me.  The dog sprang to safety with seconds to spare.

Demeter was called a "hostel parent" because of the youth of the visitors coming through, often in cycling groups.  A largish contingent came from New York City; they were loud and lively.  I was furious to be banished to bed.  For years, I remember a song they'd sing after dinner:  Hey, jig-a-jig, kiss a little pig, follow the band . . . . My husband's a baker . . . is he/ All day he bakes bread, he bakes bread, he bakes bread, and at night he comes home and (expectant pause) drinks tea!!

The implications of the pause zoomed right over my eight-year-old head.  I didn't know that the song is at least 300 years old, and was far filthier.  The cleaner version I remember turns up in the 1976 television movie Sybil, which starred Sally Field and Joanne Woodward.

 Toward the end of this second hostel summer (I'm pretty sure), Demeter had the bright idea of taking six-year old Double Leo Sister, and eight-year-old me on a spiralling hike up and around a mountain. The gravel road climbed in an ever-upward curve, as the sun beat down, and we wore out.  I've seen the pictures Demeter took that afternoon.  We looked weary.  We never found what Demeter sought: the fire look-out station at the top.

This week, Jasper National Park and the town of Jasper itself is aflame. I probably visited the town at some point, but my only memory of it was passing through it by train, when Demeter, Double Leo Sister and I moved to British Columbia. I was in my bunk half asleep when the conductor passed, calling for everyone to set their watches back an hour for Pacific Time. I may have thought of the hostels before drifting off, like smoke.

Dog days of summer

While slipping out for a slightly-post-sunset stroll,  I descended the hill on Linden Avenue and was dismayed to spot a tiny dog trotting on the opposite side -- trailing a lead about four times its length, with a cluster of empty poop-bags attached to the end.  Well, I was relieved that the trailing poop-bags were empty, but in this neighbourhood, seeing an unaccompanied dog conjures up scary visions of an elderly person collapsed somewhere.

Distracted and concerned, I crossed the street rather more automatically than I should, my peripheral vision belatedly registering a cyclist whizzing down the hill.  He missed me by a comfortable margin, while I kept my eyes on the dog.  It turned and gazed at me.  I called softly, and it came to be petted, while I quietly pulled the lead into my hand.

Straightening up, I saw a woman striding toward me on the cross street.

"No, not my dog," she said, in response to my questioning glance.  Beyond her,  a roly-poly woman appeared to be looking around on the sidewalk.  She approached me unhurriedly, taking a few minutes, and yes, the dog was hers.  She told us (striding lady had paused) that the dog was deaf and near-sighted, being fifteen years old.

And trailing her leash on the very edge of a curb near a hill with speeding cars and cyclists, while you stroll a good half-block away, I thought to myself, saying out loud:  "I'm so glad she's yours; I thought somebody might be hurt."

The little dog had finally clocked that her mistress was a few casual steps away, and shuffled towards her, the bags whispering on the concrete.

Gate-keeping

 As I returned up our stretch of sidewalk one morning, I saw a youngish man climbing out of a small truck with some sort of frames in the back.  He walked several yards ahead of me, turned up the path to our main entrance, and, instead of tapping a code into the enter-com, or getting out a key, peered in through the glass.

We have signs all over the building, warning about letting in people we don't know, so I decided to side-step any awkwardness, and turned on my heel to enter by the parking lot door.  As I got my key out, I heard a voice.  It was the fella, who had clearly followed me.

I don't think most men have the first idea of how creepy this is.

He was doing painting in the storage area, he explained, and had left his key behind. The people who had hired him were out.

Now, this was exactly the awkwardness I'd been hoping to avoid.  An unfamiliar guy asking me to let him in, on trust.

I told him I'd call a Strata Council member, and as I walked back through the parking lot, I heard him say, with barely concealed exasperation:  "I'm locked out."

"I understand that," I told him resolutely, without turning.

I decided to call the Resident Fan Boy, who happened to be home.

"Please come to the front door," I said, omitting any explanation, so he wouldn't dither. As he appeared, I stepped in past him, saying quietly, "This guy says he's locked out.  I don't know him."

The RFB, being a Strata Council member, knew that there was work being done in the storage rooms, and let him in promptly.  I hated being put on the spot, but he assured me I'd done the right thing.  The guy in the truck didn't agree, but he didn't know about the guy who got in.

That particular morning, I was late, and left by the front way to go over to Demeter's to set up her breakfast.  A lady from the fourth floor of our building, who regularly takes her elderly dachshund out for a push in a sort of enclosed wheeled stroller, was standing at the open door, talking to a man in a baseball cap.  As I passed, I thought I heard him saying something about 306 or 302, and my belly gave an uneasy lurch - I sensed my neighbour's hesitation, but I was in a hurry, dammit.

Later, I learned he'd come in, and gone into an unlocked suite just down the hall from us.  He encountered the Council President and his excitable dog; the former unceremoniously escorted him off the premises.  I thought, with some relief, about how I'd carefully locked our door as I left - younger daughter was alone in her bedroom and the RFB at a meeting.

That other guy in the truck evidently thought I could tell he was trustworthy just by looking at him.  Guys seem to think this sort of thing; I suppose some women do, too.  They're not thinking things through.

Turned turtle

 "I didn't fall down."

The voice came from an unfamiliar place.  Entering Demeter's apartment for the second of my three daily visits, I could see she wasn't in her usual seat at the far end of the loveseat.  I could also see her walker near the corner of the living room, and just beyond it, two bare feet, toes facing up.  One thing I've learned, over years of teaching, parenthood, and working with differently abled people:  panic helps no one, so I shoved the instinct aside, and strode over to find my mother, flat on her back in the space behind two armchairs which back the bookshelves, with a small cushion pillowing her head.

"I didn't fall," she repeated.  "I was down on my hands and knees, and I couldn't seem to get up this time."

"Why were you on your hands and knees, Mama?"

"I don't remember."

Silently, I reasoned that she couldn't have passed out; the Lifeline monitor hanging from her pendant would have registered a fall, and I would have been notified.  I started moving the armchairs, so I could position myself behind her head and draw her to a sitting position.

It soon became apparent that that I wouldn't be able to lift her to her feet.  Demeter isn't heavy, but she was too tired to help, and thus a deadweight.

Thinking quickly, I phoned the Resident Fan Boy, and called him away from his customary Sunday lunch with younger daughter.  They had just started, so arranged for the food to be packed.

In the meantime, I braced Demeter's back against my shins, and leaning, managed to turn one of the armchairs,  a bit of a struggle against the carpet pile, but now Demeter could rest her head and arms in the seat.  

It was a muggy afternoon, and Demeter doesn't like the windows open; the traffic noises resound in her hearing aids.  Able to step away now, I turned on the fan, noticing it was plugged in a different place.  I usually plug the fan in a multisocket behind the couch, where I'm far less likely to trip over it.  It was now in a rather difficult-to-access cubby, hidden amid the bookshelves.

After her weekly shower, she had dressed and gone into the kitchen to make lemonade, because "I know we're out of Ribena".

(We're not.  She had seen me recycle the previous bottle and assumed I hadn't bought the replacement some weeks ago.  I had.)

After this exertion, she felt warm, so attempted to turn on the fan, which I had turned off before leaving after my morning call, because Demeter finds it chilling and noisy. When, for some reason, the fan didn't seem to work, she decided to replug it.  On her hands and knees.  Demeter is 94.

Then she couldn't get up, so she lay on her back, exhausted, for an hour.

I finally was able to help her to roll to her knees, by supporting and raising her buttocks, then, bracing myself against her right side,  she pulled herself to a crouch, and I guided her into the chair.  I went to retrieve one of the lemonades from the fridge.  They were uncovered, and she had left the stirring spoon in one of them.

I phoned the Resident Fan Boy, now hurrying down from Harris Green.  While still on Yates, a cyclist rolled up behind them and barked:  "Choose a side!"  As he rolled past, something in the RFB snapped.

"You're riding on the sidewalk!" he shouted.  To his consternation, the cyclist stopped, tossed his bike to one side, and strode up to the RFB.  "Now it gets real!" he snarled.  Probably more like surreal, the RFB thinks he was drunk or high.  Younger daughter was terrified, and stepped forward to protectively grab her father's arm.  The cyclist did not come within six feet.  My husband and daughter turned and walked off in the opposite direction, hoping that he was in too much of a hurry to turn and pursue them.

I was reiterating to Demeter (gently, I hope), how trying not to be a bother winds up with more worry for  everyone, especially when I'm a two-minute walk down the street, as the dynamic duo came, flushed and frazzled, through the door.

Younger daughter grasped Demeter's hand in concern, something very unusual for her.  It had been a frightening afternoon, especially for someone on the spectrum.  

The RFB helped me get Demeter safely to her accustomed place in the corner of the loveseat, before helping younger daughter set up the restaurant lunch on the dining room table, while I steamed a corn on the cob for Demeter.  

There was plenty of Ribena for everyone.

Are those dreams or are those prayers?

Look, I could tell you about today.

But not today.

Maybe tomorrow.  

In the meantime, this song is performed by Roseanne Cash, and written by Tom Waits.  Well the smart money's on Harlow 

And the moon is in the street 

The shadow boys are breaking all the laws 

And you're east of East St. Louis 

And the wind is making speeches 

And the rain sounds like a round of applause 

Napoleon is weeping in the Carnival saloon 

His invisible fiance is in the mirror 

And the band is going home 

It's raining hammers 

It's raining nails 

Oh, it's time, time, time 

And it's time, time, time 

And it's time, time, time that you love 

And it's time, time, time 

And they all pretend they're orphans 

And their memory's like a train 

You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away 

And the things you can't remember 

Tell the things you can't forget that 

History puts a saint in every dream 

Well she said she'd stick around 

Until the bandages came off 

But these mama's boys just don't know when to quit 

And Matilda asks the sailors 

Are those dreams or are those prayers? 

So close your eyes, son 

And this won't hurt a bit

Out of pocket

So I'm sitting there minding my own business, the credits rolling on a less-than-stellar movie that I felt I should watch, when my pocket goes:  WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP, and I haul my phone out of my pocket to scan the screen in disbelief.

Somehow, I've managed to pocket-dial 911, and a message advises me that it's counting down to phoning my emergency contacts -- which include elder daughter in London, where it's currently just before dawn: 5-4-3... I hit the "cancel" button in a whirl of adrenaline and bafflement.

A couple of moments later, my phone rings, and a cheerful voice asks me if I'm okay, and would I please identify myself and my location.  I'm still so flustered that it takes a second for me to recall where I am.  I explain what happened and she laughs, saying it happens all the time.

It does??  

When the old man died

Fairly recently, we reached a notable numbered anniversary for the death of my father-in-law. 

It snuck up on me, but when the realisation hit, I felt no stab of grief, nor did I feel like doing a jig.  He was the Resident Fan Boy's dad, and the grandfather of my daughters.  Elder daughter and the RFB genuinely miss him; younger daughter is too young to remember him.

I'm afraid I don't particularly miss him.  He was high maintenance, and not fond of me.  Nevertheless, I was chagrinned to find, running through my mind on a mildly disrespectful loop:  When the o-o-o-ld ma-a-an di-i-i-ed....

"My Grandfather's Clock" was a fairly regular part of my childhood.  It was a staple of so-called "songs for children" - even though, as a little girl, I found the lyrics quite creepy:  a clock that carefully measures out a man's lifetime and dies when he does?  I have a vague memory of my sister's Grade Two class singing it at assembly:  Ninety years without slumbering - tick-tock, tick-tock - His life's seconds numbering... 

Ick.

Like a lot of songs aimed at children in the late 20th century, it certainly wasn't written for children.  It occurred to me that my daughters, children of the dawn of the 21st century, may not be familiar with the song.  I have no recollection of their ever singing it.

I looked it up and discovered that: a)  the term "grandfather clock" originates with the song; and b) it was written in the 1870s by Henry Clay Work, same guy who wrote the Civil War song "Marching Through Georgia".  Work came from a Connecticut family with strong Abolitionist beliefs, and is distantly related to Frances Work, the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

There are probably several parodies of this, but the one I know of is "My Grandmother's Cat" by Garrison Keillor.  It seems to be carefully copyrighted, so I won't put it here, but it's possible to listen to it through Apple Music.

My late father-in-law didn't quite make it to ninety, although I think I remember a grandfather clock in the front hallway.  Don't know what became of it.

Ankle-biter express (write of passage number fifty-five)

 "Oh, no-no-no-no-no...."  I breathed, gazing in horror out the bus window.  Two days in a row, I'd escorted Demeter to medical appointments, the latter being a dental appointment that lasted over an hour.

We'd been thrilled to just catch a bus bound for home, securing courtesy seats with a gap to keep Demeter's walker out of the aisle on a relatively uncrowded bus for a late weekday afternoon.  

Not quite this bad

The bus turned up the incline on Burdett Avenue, and lined up at the stop outside the Starbucks were two dozen seven-year-olds in day-camp teeshirts and yellow vests, intending to return to the community centre with a grand total of three supervisors.  In the grand summer tradition, exactly one supervisor went to the back of the bus with the youngsters, while the other two stayed at the front of bus, calling directions while the kids hung ineffectually from the dangling loops intended for adult standees, and clutched at Demeter's walker.  

I caught the eye of one of the minders and said, firmly:  "My mother has a walker.  She will be getting out at Cook and Fairfield."

"Cook and Fairfield," the minder repeated, a little dazedly.

Looking with some despair at the aisle, a sea of little yellow vests, I rang the bell just after the Vancouver stop and raised my voice:  "Lady with a walker getting out at Fairfield and Cook!"

I could hear the message being passed to the front, where at least half a dozen adults, who had been unfortunate enough (or foolish enough) to board behind the ankle-biters, were crammed beyond the yellow safety line.  The driver called her acknowledgement and about a dozen people of varying sizes poured out on to the sidewalk to allow us out.

As I helped Demeter step down backwards, I heard the driver yell:  "NO!  You cannot get on!  These people are all getting back in!  This bus is FULL!"  She smiled reassuringly at us, and I thanked everyone.

This was an improvement on the day before, when a couple (old enough to know better) leapt ahead of us like a pair of gazelles, and claimed two courtesy seats, leaving only enough room for Demeter to sit and clutch her walker close.

I'll bet they were American. 

Worn out and needing a lullaby

 Had a circular sawblade, where I should have had a heart

You kept your boat afloat for so long

I was trusted, I adored her, and I tore it all apart

I saw you try and stop the sunset on your own

Twin moons on a millpond, and a tumbledown barn

I'll forever want your ancient silver gravity

I can still taste the heat of the sun on her skin in my arms

I could fold to the cold of these January streets

Keep your hand around the fickle flame of morning-after

But your smile in the half-light was pure pillow-print cheek

An angel tangled in the very cloths of heaven

I'll be far away for a while, but my heart's staying put

Warming and guarding and guiding the one that I love

The silence and the waiting and the rush of all aboard

Fifty souls to a carriage I'm trying hard to be ignored

Then my telephone shakes into life and I see your name

And the wheatfields explode into gold either side of the train