A Brief History of the Drug Trade and Attempts to Stop It

Why on earth you may ask, would I be writing about this now as the year ends? Is it just because it’s deep winter here in parts of Canada and I’m thinking of ways to escape? Not at all. I recently reread Ngaio Marsh’s novel Spinsters in Jeopardy (published 1953) which is a mystery that includes reference to the drug trade and various early attempts to control or end it. The novel has been criticized by some as a bit of a “reefer madness” story, and unrealistic, but other mystery writers of the time (Margery Allingham) also wrote about the drug trade and its negative effects on individuals. Obviously this was an issue at that period of time. At any rate, I was curious as to whether Marsh’s references to The Hague Convention, the League of Nations, and the United Nations were accurate in regards to attempts to curtail the drug trade.

Drugs of one sort or another have been used by humans probably since before history began to be written. The opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia as early as 3400 BCE. Opium was introduced to China by Arab and Turkish traders in 6^th or 7^th century. At first used sparingly as a means to control pain, it spread more widely in the 17th century when the use of “ordinary” tobacco (which contains nicotine,  another sort of drug) became popular. Opium became such a problem in China that the emperor Yung-cheng outlawed the sale and smoking of it. However, the Portuguese and then the British discovered that they could import opium from India and sell it in China at a considerable profit, purchasing goods such as tea, porcelain, and silk which were in high demand in Europe. The Chinese weren’t much interested in European goods, but there continued to be a demand for opium. Two opium wars didn’t do much to stop the trade, but eventually the Chinese communist government was able to mostly eradicate opium smoking.

Diacetylmorphine (now known as heroin) was first synthesized in 1874 by Alder Wright, an English chemist. It did not come into general use until independently created by Felix Hoffmann, a chemist working for a company in Germany that later became Bayer (of Aspirin fame). From 1898 to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant. At which point it was discovered that heroin rapidly metabolizes into morphine and is quicker acting (and of course addictive). A great embarrassment for the Bayer company.

Coca leaves were chewed by the Inca three thousand years before the birth of Christ. Later, the Spanish supplied their South American Indian silver mine workers with coca to make them easier to control. Cocaine was first extracted from coca by (another) German chemist, Albert Niemann in 1859. Freud used the drug himself, and promoted it for use in depression and sexual impotence. And apparently Coca Cola once contained 9 milligrams of cocaine per glass.

Up to the early 1900’s cocaine and opium elixirs, tonics and wines (e.g. a Bordeaux wine laced with coca leaves) were used by people of all social classes including Thomas Edison. Poor blacks and other workers were often given cocaine by employers to increase productivity; it was cheaper than alcohol. By 1912 the United States reported 5,000 cocaine related deaths in one year. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 regulated and licensed drug production in the U.S. The Jones-Miller Act of 1922 seriously restricted cocaine manufacturing.

In 1912 the International Opium Convention was signed at the Hague by China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Siam, The UK and British overseas territories including British India. After 1919 all the countries that signed the Versailles Peace Treaty also became parties to the Hague Convention. At this time, the drugs included to be controlled were opium, morphine, cocaine and heroin.

World War I let to rapidly rising drug use in several countries, as well as among soldiers. Under the auspices of  The League of Nations an Opium Advisory Committee took over the functions laid down in the Hague Convention. The OAC discovered that world opium and coca production exceeded the world`s medical needs at least by a factor of 10. A couple of conventions were held in 1924/25 to try and encourage nations to gradually stop the manufacture and trade of prepared opium. Conventions to attempt further controls were also held in 1931 and 1936.

So as far as Spinsters in Jeopardy goes ,and efforts to control drugs, Marsh did her research. On a side note, one review I read, said that no parent would leave their sleeping child alone while going to eat (there is a child kidnapping as part of the story). Well, in May of 2007, a family did just that in Portugal, with their children, resulting in the kidnapping of their daughter, who has so far not been found.

As of 1946, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs took over illegal drug control efforts. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime produced a document called “A Century of International Drug Control” that contains many additional interesting facts (1909 – 2009).

http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/100_Years_of_Drug_Control.pdf

Ugliness and Beauty

“The media generate relentless images of mediocrity and ugliness in talk-shows, tapestries of smothered language and frenetic gratification. ... Beauty is mostly forgotten and made to seem naive and romantic.” So writes John O’Donahue in his book Beauty The Invisible Embrace (published 2003).

I think that at points in (recent) history some people rebelled at general social concepts of beauty, saw them as constraining and demeaning (overly thin models, completely unnaturally made up faces, certain de rigueur clothing styles). So there was a search for more natural looks and more relaxed attitudes. Perhaps these have been taken to extreme. Personally, I don’t find pyjamas a great outfit to see worn on the streets, nor do I like jeans that fall half-way down someone’s bum to reveal their underwear or lack of it. Others might say this is just my point of view and so what? I do think that the naked human body can be beautiful, no matter its shape or age, though I don’t particularly want to see it on the sidewalk everyday (besides in this climate it doesn’t make sense most of the time). Certainly, I don’t believe that we should all look like bankers or all dress alike, and what O’Donahue is saying is not as simplistic as this. His ideas have worth and need to be further examined.

O’Donahue aligns beauty with courage. We need courage to live and the encounter with beauty, he says, can help to awaken courage. I think he’s saying that beauty is more than superficial prettiness; the yearning for beauty lives deep within the human heart, “a transforming presence wherein we unfold towards growth almost before we realize it.”

Reading parts of this book I was reminded of a passage from Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers. “God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is afoot. Magic is alive. Alive is afoot. Magic never died. God never sickened. Many poor men lied. Many sick men lied. Magic never weakened. Magic never hid. Magic always ruled.” And so on – it continues for about a page and a half. If you want to hear it, listen to the song by Buffy St. Marie. The words move me in a way that is not easily described – they feel true, but not in a literal way, rather metaphorical, spiritual – I said, I can’t describe it. It’s like a Zen koan, which you listen to, hear, can’t explain, meditate on, and then suddenly at some moment it blazes into your consciousness. I think that O’Donahue is talking about beauty in this way. It can take us unaware – a view across blue water of distant misty hills, a blaze of sunlight through dark clouds, dark green evergreens dusted with snow on a chilly morning, a few words said by someone you care about, a piece of music, a painting.

Everyone has their own memories of encounters with beauty. Often, though we forget to look for beauty, neglect its lessons and transformative powers. We move at such speed and among such noise that there`s no space to stop, listen, look. A moment of beauty can be small or large, short or long – take the time to watch for revelations of beauty in your life.

Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Samhain

The last day of October is less than a couple of weeks away. I like to decorate my front porch with ghosts, spiders, black cat cut outs, a skeleton or two, and lighted pumpkins. I`ve always thought that the day came from a combination of the Christian day of celebration for the dead (All Saints, All Hallows) and the Celtic festival of Samhain (a harvest end of year festival). Indeed Wikipedia does describe these influences and also mentions the Roman end of summer feast of Pomona and the festival for the dead of Parentalia. Wikipedia also says that Halloween came to North America with the influx of Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 19^th century.

In ancient Egypt, approximately in May, the Festival of the Valley was held in the Theban necropolis (large cemetery, city of the dead).  It was a time for families to feast with their dead.

The ancient Greeks had a day when they believed the dead came up, and so they had to smear their doors with tar and chew certain leaves to keep away evil.

Many people probably know about the Mexican Day of the Dead, a religious festival celebrated with food, candles, and flowers, and visits to cemeteries. The festival blends customs from the Spanish conquistadors and the Aztec and Mayan peoples. The Aztecs and Mayans both believed that the dead returned to visit the living during one day of the year.

In Japan they hold a Festival of Lanterns (Obon) in August, when the souls of the dead are said to walk on earth, to visit their relatives. Offerings of food are made at Buddhist temples, and people hang lighted lanterns on their houses, so the dead can find their way. At the end, paper lanterns with lit candles are floated down rivers to the ocean, so the dead can find the way back to their proper land. (http://edsitement.neh.gov/not-just-halloween-festivals-dead-around-world)

I remember a festival in Germany when I was a child, when we carried lanterns through the streets. This was probably St. Martin`s Day, which is still celebrated on November 11 in parts of Germany. It`s officially a Catholic Holiday, but has spread to other areas (we lived in the Protestant north). I would not let anyone light my candle because I was afraid that the lantern would catch fire – which happened, and still does, as it would when you`re carrying a lantern on a stick outside and there might be wind or a wiggly hand.

Happy decorating, trick or treating, and partying, whatever your traditions!

 

Why I Write

An idea comes to me – a character or two, a scene, a fragment of plot – and I want to follow it, work it through, go along the path where it leads. It’s initially for my own satisfaction, but also in the hope that someone else will read it and like it.

I don’t think that most writers do it for fame and fortune – after all very few get that. There’s a need, perhaps a hunger to follow an elusive creature – call it inspiration, a muse, whatever. One writer said to me once, that writing was the only thing she knew how to do well. That’s not the case for me – I’ve had several different jobs, and put a great deal of time and effort into doing them well. But there’s something about writing that fulfills in a way that other jobs or activities don’t.

The reasons writers give for writing may vary. Some do it to influence or educate others, and perhaps that’s a part of my reasons, but not the major one.  Others want to entertain, but again, I think that’s probably a secondary reason or not the main one for most. Many are as creative with their reasons for writing as are their books. Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and other books) said, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” “I love to get published,” said Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test, Bonfire of the Vanities) “It maddens me not to get published.” Rudyard Kipling (Kim, The Jungle Book), said, “Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

It’s not easy to write; one sits down alone at a desk or table or anywhere with a pen or pencil and paper, or with a computer or typewriter, and stares at blankness, sometimes for a long period. At times, there’s magic that happens, and words flow, then again it may be like having a tooth pulled without anesthetic.

What I love is when the ideas and words flow, even if I know that later I’ll have to revise. Advice from Coletter (Cheri, Claudine): “Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer.  But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.” The act of creation, making something that didn’t exist before gives me a high, the kind of satisfaction, I don’t get from many other things. It’s an especially powerful feeling when I think that I’ve got it right, when I get the description or the characters or the events, or a passage the way I want it so that it conveys what I want it to convey. Of course, a reader may get an entirely different emotion; see things I didn’t know I was putting in. And that’s another great feeling.

Creation – we can all do it; it doesn’t have to be writing, can be drawing, sewing, cooking, gardening, telling a story to a grandchild, solving a knotty problem.

So I write because it’s an amazing, challenging, difficult, easy, magical, heart rending, joyful experience. And it’s equally great to share what I’ve written.

Writers like to hear what you think of their work – so don’t be shy, let them know you read it, let them know if you liked something, if it touched you, if you laughed, cried, smiled.

(Note: All quotes are from “Quotable Quotes on Writers and Writing” http://www.logicalcreativity.com/jon/quotes.html#b)

Good News Saskatoon

I remember when I became a teacher; one of the things I learned was that what we are told over and over about ourselves becomes true. The caution was, don’t label kids as slow or stupid, etc., but encourage them instead.

So why is it that our news media pick all the negative events – accidents, deaths, and so on, to give us day after day? Of course, these things happen, but do we need to search them out from around the globe and exclude the good news about people, the positive events that happen every day?

I think that if all we hear day after day is the negative, the catastrophic, the bad about people, we will find it hard to maintain our own positive outlook, which I believe is key to living a fulfilling life. As humans, we need encouragement and inspiration.

There is something called the “Good News Network” in the United States, and a similar web page in Canada. This seems to me to be moving in the right direction, but neither quite satisfies me. I want something closer to home and more specific.

So, I’ve been thinking that I would search out a few good news stories to start.

The Saskatoon Public Library System, which turns 100 this year is a case in point. It is one of the most heavily used library systems in Canada (in 2010 patrons checked out more than 2.6 million items –doesn’t that say something positive about Saskatonians).  In 2011 over 6,825 children participated in the Children`s Summer Reading Club (stats are from City of Saskatoon 2012 Preliminary Operating Budget). But of course statistics aren’t everything. I’ve used these libraries for more than 40 years and have found the staff helpful, friendly and quick. I request books and DVD’s and in short order I’m notified that they are waiting for me at the library of my choice.  If Saskatoon libraries don’t have the item, it comes from some other library in Saskatchewan, since all are now linked (or from an interlibrary loan elsewhere in Canada). For more than one hundred years, people in Saskatoon have thought books, reading and related activities as important. I salute the people who dedicated themselves to begin and continue to run the library system, and all the people who use it!

Another good news story as far as I’m concerned, is the riverbank trail system we have in Saskatoon. Once again, people many years ago thought ahead and didn’t allow the whole riverbank to be bought up for building lots. Rather, they kept a great deal of it for public parks – free and accessible to everyone. On these trails, you can see walkers, runners, and cyclists. Certainly we have unpleasant incidents now and then, but on the whole, people are friendly, say ‘hello’ to each other and share the trails peaceably.

Have you any good news stories? I’d like to hear about people who successfully stood up to bullies, helped friends in such situations, did a quiet good turn for a neighbour (I have very good neighbours) or stranger, or anything else positive that you observe or hear.

My Crete

Each person has a different relationship with the places where they live or travel to. Writer John Fowles, in the introduction to The Magus (1985 reprint edition), said, ‘In most outward ways this experience was depressive, as many young would-be writers and painters who have gone to Greece for inspiration have discovered. We used to have a nickname for the sense of inadequacy and accidie it induced – the “Aegean Blues.”’ The book has a small basis in Fowles experience as a young man teaching English on the Island of Spetsai in 1951-52.

I had a totally different experience in my nearly two weeks on Crete this past June. Perhaps the difference is the island, or my age (which is considerably older than Fowles was at the time), my writing experience, or possibly my own arrogance. I did not feel intimidated by the wealth of past Greek writing, but was instead inspired, soothed, relaxed, stimulated by the landscape, the legends, and the history.

The writing course I took during five days in the village of Loutro left me with a lot of bits and pieces of possible short stories. After I got home, I was inspired to write two completely new short stories. These stories had a basis in Greek and Cretan mythology.

The sea and the sky of Crete stayed with me – all those shades of blue: cerulean, turquoise, cobalt, ultramarine. White buildings trimmed with blue stacked up against the raw umber coloured hills. Clear, fresh air of morning invigorated me, but heated quickly and I was grateful for the awnings over the tavernas. A late afternoon walk up the hills left me sweaty and needing a shower! Thankfully my spacious room had its own bathroom with shower.

Fresh food with wild herbs, delicious – moussaka, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, wild greens, mountain tea, cheese, yogurt, lemonade, wine. I ate so much the first couple of days that I had to take a few meals of bread and cheese in my room to let my digestion recover!

Crete is old; its history goes back to the time of legends and beyond – Zeus and Europa, Minos and the Minotaur, the Venetians and Ottoman Turks, the second world war – but although I saw ancient ruins and parts of cities with new built on old, I also had a feeling of immediacy. This moment was important, this sun, this sea, this sky.

Will I ever go back? I don’t know. It’s a long way, and flying is not cheap. Still, I will carry Crete in my heart and soul for a long time to come, and I have lots of pictures.

Travel in the Current Age

My recent trip to Greece made me think about how in the 21^st century we subject ourselves to travel that reminds me of squeezing cattle into boxcars. We opt for speed and discomfort rather than comfort and relaxation, a slower pace. Who, after all, in today’s world can take 6 to 14 days by ship to get from North America to Europe? It’s also cheaper to fly. One quote I read for the sea voyage was $1,500 per person one way. Still, the thought is appealing.

Just imagine, leg room, and the ability to walk around, go for meals and drinks, look at the ocean, lie down in an actual bed. Plus, no hanging about in several noisy and crowded airports. My trip to Greece started in my home city, and took me to 2 more before I finally landed in Athens (4 cities in all with waits at airports to change planes). I found Toronto’s Pearson airport particularly awful on the way over – there seemed to be noise everywhere. If it wasn’t people talking or public address announcements, it was musak. And the airlines hadn’t seemed to think of the concept of asking people to line up by rows, so that we all crowed together near the gate as if we didn’t have assigned seats. Munich airport was heaven by comparison. I had a several hour stopover there, but I found more than a couple of quiet areas plus free beverage stations from Lufthansa. That’s a bit more civilized.

Granted, ships are not for everyone (though the thought of that kind of holiday appeals to me more and more as I get older). Still, it seems to me that in the 21^st century we should be able to come up with better ways of speedy travel. What happened to the concept of the planetary shuttle? And couldn’t we have solar powered flight? Cheaper flights so we wouldn’t have to crowd together; everyone should have as much room as business class does now. Or maybe we could hovercraft across the ocean. Perhaps we need to bring back the dirigible for long distances – after all we now have gases that don’t explode to fill the balloons.

Of course, in the Star Trek universe we would be beaming back and forth, even quicker with less time on crowed airplanes.

Come on young entrepreneurs, research scientists, and engineers, get moving on this transportation stuff. The right idea could be environmentally friendly, comfortable and make someone pots of money.

I'm Grateful

Often I see all the problems with this place – winter that lasts forever, governments that don’t respond to the real needs and concerns of people, rude service in stores, pot holes, etc. But lately I’ve had a number of experiences that reminded me that I’m lucky to live here, in this country, this province, this city, this neighbourhood.

When I turned sixty-five this year, I received Old Age Security, which helps to supplement my CPP and work pension (neither of which is huge), so that I can live a little more comfortably. Provincial and interprovincial bus lines give discounts for people from the age of 60 on. I got notice of the provincial drug prescription plan, which keeps fees affordable (though at this point, luckily, I don’t have regular medications to take).

I had to do some paperwork for my aging parents and found helpful people in the community where they live. Also good on-line resources provincially and federally.

I got a mobile phone for the first time last fall and have found it extremely useful, particularly when out of town. Recently I was able to book home care for a sick family member from a distance. Also was able to extend a book renewal at the library for a few days so that I could pick it up when I got home from a trip.

I’m grateful for friends, neighbours, and family, both on social media and face to face – we share joys and sorrows, support and sustain each other.

Throughout my life I’ve had opportunities to do interesting and useful work, meet new people, learn, travel.

If this all sounds a bit too Pollyanna-ish (the book Pollyanna is actually not bad), it’s not meant to be that. I just wanted to remind myself and others that joy comes from appreciation of the small miracles that happen every day or week. Even in the midst of gloom, if you look for it, you may find a crocus just popping through the snow, see the pelicans arrive, or notice a lone butterfly – a harbinger of spring.

The Vagaries of Weather

On April 6, 2005 I wrote in a notebook, “Dusty day, though warm, too warm, really for April. I like a slow spring.”

This year on April 7, we had snow falling in the morning, and piles of snow banks sit all over the place. Most of us, though aching for spring and melting, would like a slow melt so that we don’t have to contend with water in basements or other places. I’ve already heard people talk about water leaking through kitchen ceilings and windows.

 

 

April 8, 2005 a haiku came while I walked along the river bank:

 

White river ice melts

Turns green, colour of new grass –

Winter’s hold broken.

This year, winter has us in a steely grip that won’t let go. A couple of days ago we had melting and it felt like spring. Now, who knows? I wonder if there’s ever been a year when spring didn’t actually come. Ice age time?

 

 

 

 

I have seen Canada geese already flying over the river this year, though so that’s hopeful. Unless some of them didn’t leave this winter? I don’t think the pelicans have arrived yet. According the Meewasin’s web site, the earliest sighting since they started keeping track, was last year – April 4. The latest arrival time so far has been April 18. I wonder if we’ll set a record this year for late arrival. How do birds know when to come anyway? Do they have some kind of long distance telepathy so that the sparrows and chickadees send out the word: “Still too much snow and ice, stay away”?

 

Things look hopeful for the next week – sunny skies and for next Saturday, rain is predicted. That’s better than snow.



 

Last year was apparently Canada’s third mildest winter on record, so maybe we were due. But of course weather isn’t logical in that way. We don’t deserve this or that kind of weather, it just happens.

 

Humans have been trying to predict the weather for millennia, but apparently it wasn’t until 1835, with the invention of the electric telegraph that the modern age of weather forecasting began. I guess it’s useful to be able to send information around the world. We forget sometimes how amazing it is that we can go on line and see what the weather is like and going to be like in any region of the world. Currently, in Crete, where it’s Monday morning already, it’s raining. The temperature is 16 degrees Centigrade. Sigh.

The Flexible and Ephemeral Nature of Time

For me time, the fourth dimension, is both a reality and a construct, perhaps even a fantasy.

One can read the rings of trees, the scales of fish, the layers in earth or ice, and meet the past. Dinosaurs once existed on the earth, but they don't anymore. I have been a baby, a child, a teenager; once young, now I am older.

At times though, it seems as if many of the things that have happened to me are part of some story that I've read. And then, when I'm smack in the middle of a memory, an event that happened in the past can be immediate. I'm seeing and feeling it now.

Humans have made time pieces and calendars to help them tell and keep a record of time. Something like 7,000 years ago people in India studied the postions of stars and sun for the purposes of religion and astrology; perhaps they constructed sun dials. Early Egyptians and Babylonians used a water clock to measure time. The Egyptians also developed a solar calendar. Persians and Sumerians used a sand filled hour glass. These days we can use our computers and mobiles to mark dates, get reminders and check hours and minutes.

Other creatures besides humans have a sense of time. Birds know when to fly south and when to return. Bears know when to hibernate and when to wake. Do they tell time by the sun, by the weather or some internal mechanism of their bodies. Certain flowers close in the afternoon, others bloom all day. If you put feed into a bird feeder at the same time each day, birds will soon show up at that time regularly.

The earth rotates on a schedule -- we call it a day, though it could be called anything else. A year is the approximate time it takes for the earth to rotate around the sun, though it`s actually slightly longer than 365 days, which is why we invented the leap year.

When I had a full time job, my life was mainly run by the clock. I had to be at work at a certain time, had appointments, breaks for lunch, a set time to quit. Weekends were more flexible, but I still had a schedule, tasks to do, things to fit in. Now that I work mainly on my own projects, time is much more ephemeral and flexible. What does it matter whether today is Saturday or Wednesday. Just if I`ve got a dental appointment that I end up missing because I misremembered the time. But otherwise, I can get up when I like, stay in bed if it`s too cold or cloudy out, get up at 4 am if I`m wide awake and spend a while reading or writing.

For the Priaha people (they call themselves `The Straight Ones`) of Brazil, apparently there are hardly any words related to time. They have no past tense, but live in the present and from personal experience. They also tell no stories.

I couldn`t live without stories, so prefer to embrace past, present and future. I need the fourth dimension. But within those cultures that use time, not all are as bound by the clock as many North Americans or Europeans. Time doesn`t fly for everyone; though it can soar, flow or eddy, and carry us whereever we like.

Edmonton Interlude

I remember the Edmonton of more than 40 years ago quite vividly – dilapidated (and supposedly haunted) row houses not far from the Legislative Buildings, a neighbourhood diner where we had banana splits, the front of the Students’ Union Building at the U of A, going to Klondike Days and to the formula car races. One’s impressions of a city can be made up of such a series of small memory snapshots that carry on into the future. I’d always thought of Edmonton as a city that I liked.

In the last couple of years I’ve been coming here much more often than previously, to visit my grandson and his parents. The city has grown of course, and it feels less friendly to me. Huge condos loom over the downtown riverbank, the dilapidated row houses are no more and neither is the diner. Clean cities are a good thing to my mind, but it also seems to me that Edmonton has lost some of its interesting character, at least in and around the downtown.

These days I’m more aware of the freeways than anything else, though the river valley and Whitemud Creek Ravine cut welcome swaths of slightly wild green. Walking in Whitemud Park, one can watch  chickadees and feed nuts to squirrels, while listening to the sound of wind in the trees. My impression of the city now, probably has a great deal to do with where my grandson and his parents live – close enough to Whitemud Drive that the noise in their postage stamp back yard is constant. Still, the LRT is an extremely useful mode of transportation for reaching downtown and beyond.

Going to the Royal Alberta Museum is always interesting, and the John Janzen Nature Centre is a perfect place to take kids on a gloomy or cold day. Fort Edmonton Historic Park is still as engrossing to me as it ever was, though I think they had better animateurs at times in the past. I look forward to revisiting the Muttart Conservatory, where I haven’t been for several years. I’d like to explore other neighbourhoods  such as Queen Mary Park, Garneau and Calder.

This visit, we attended the Silver Skate Winter Festival, an event rooted in Dutch tradition, which is now in its 23^rd year. I wondered whether the name referred to the book Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, which one of my teachers read to us in elementary school. I didn’t find any reference to the book on the website, but other story book characters (Little Red Riding Hood, Baba Yaga, King of the Wolves and Rübezahl) wandered around in costume at the event. There were horse drawn sleigh rides, bannock making, ice sliding, snow sculptures, maple sugar taffy pulling, and much more.

I doubt that Edmonton could take the place of Saskatoon, Victoria and Halifax in my heart, but the city has its good points.

Saskatoon Winter

In this part of the country winter often means severe cold, grey skies, lots of snow, periodic blizzards. It can be gloomy and depressing, though lots of people take part in winter sports like cross country skiing, skating, and hockey. There are movies to go to, plays, art galleries and so on.

Often I find myself wanting to stay indoors with a good book.  I make myself go out several times a week because I know that a walk, even when the sky is the same colour as the ground – I feel at times as if I’m inside a snowball – because I know it will make me feel better.

I’m grouchier these days, not as positive in my outlook as at other times. It may be winter or it may be age.

I’ve noticed that some other old people have less patience, complain more and are definitely negative. I tell myself that attitude is everything and I don’t have to be like that. Yet I find myself with gloomy or grouchy thoughts. Perhaps it’s that after many years on this earth we’ve experienced a lot of things and are tired of seeing the same old things. We get into a pattern, make ruts and stay there.  It’s not impossible to get out.

The other day, though, it occurred to me that perhaps a certain amount of grouchiness, anger, negativity might be necessary to get through the difficult times. Grouchiness might be a survival tool. Use what you have – when given lemons, make lemonade.

Then, a few days later, I heard an interview on the radio (I still love radio, even if it is an older technology; it’s so convenient – you can be doing other things and connect with something new and different at the same time) with a carnie who was speaking about the impact of technology on carnies. Suddenly I was taken into a whole new world. I haven’t seen or heard it all after all! Of course there is always something new s and interesting out in the world. All we have to do is go out and look for it or be open to it.

Currently the sun is shining, lighting up the snow, and the sky is blue.