I did my research and found out that the speaker on First Nations issues I heard on CBC was George Erasmus at the 3rd annual LaFontaine Baldwin Conference in Vancouver.

Tomorrow is the last day of the journey. I leave the next day for four days with Colin James. Comical isn’t it. I don’t look forward to going home save for seeing the cat I look forward to seeing my friends and family and the new crop of babies that was harvested in my absence. Its also been 5 months since I played hockey with my musician brothers and I look forward to that. The rest just doesn’t matter at all. I never miss the place itself. I never miss my things. I never miss my bed or my hometown hangouts. I find that Vancouverites, as in any town, are very proud of the place they live. The city is always heralded by some survey or magazine as a top ten “livable city”. Much to do is made about its picturesque beauty and cosmopolitan atmosphere. Very little is mentioned about it being insanely dank, rainy and overcast . . . In all seasons. The fall through to the spring can be like the solstice up north. Months of darkness yielding seasonal depression. This generally gray atmosphere brings about intense euphoria when it lets up. When the sun comes out it blasts the place wide open with colour. I imagine this is the same in any rain forest. Vibrant greens and blues. People go crazy. They’re out there in their shorts hanging off the edge of a speeding sailboat within ten minutes. The tops are down and all the postcard photographers rush to the carefully numbered scenic overlooks to create the image the outside world sees. Vancouver’s downtown east side is the poorest neigbourhood in the country. Crack, heroin and prostitution should be as synonymous with Vancouver as great skiing, hiking and sushi. I’ve heard some high quality strains of the drug marijuana are grown here . “High Times” may be as important to tourism as Mountainbike Magazine. Will the real shady Vancouver please stand up. There is always a downside. When you live somewhere you get both the upside and the downside. When you visit you try only for the upside. After so much flitting around I think its possible to make a good life anywhere. The network of support you build for yourself leads to feeling comfortable. If you get that together you are drawn to the place and you can safely go to bat for it beyond all logic The bleakest and most hopeless towns have the most emphatic welcome signs. The residents generally believe in these proud proclamations. “Welcome to Boonville: Home of the World’s Most Beautiful Gardens”. This may be open for debate. “The most important event in Canadian history” happened in about 2000 places by my count . That phrase is featured in everyone’s brochure. Everyplace is great. You just have to get comfortable. Some towns proclaim things that should not be proclaimed because they are trying so hard to demonstrate how comfortable they are with themselves. “Parson Creek: World’s Biggest Strip Mine”. “Welcome to Elkfoot: Visit our Highway Serial Killer Museum and Gift Shop”. “Stalingrad BC: Too Proud to Change Our Name...Not Like Those Other Wimps”. Just look at me for the best example. I could easily explain to you why the Vancouver Canucks are the best team in all of professional sport. To some foolish outsiders this seems laughable. “Our 32 years of misery” are a badge of honour ‘round this town. It has helped me understand Leaf fans. Its the pavlovian response to your comfortable things. You see those uniforms and you lose most of your critical thinking skills. You drool like a dog. Each year the Toronto papers are talking about “the drive to the cup” just around the time training camp starts up. This shows great civic pride. I understand.
posted by Craig Northey at 8:25 AM

A footnote to that last posting. Heard half of a lecture by someone on CBC Radio 1 last night that melded with my own thoughts today. It was on a new discourse for first nations relations with the rest of Canada. I want to give credit to that person's influence. I'll have to phone the CBC to find out who it was because we lost reception somewhere near Nanton heading north and I missed the end. The catharsis began when I saw the Crazy Horse Mountain memorial in progress right after I saw Rushmore.
posted by Craig Northey at 12:37 AM

What spin are you going to put on it? Perspective. Looking at the same object from different angles. Today we took the kids and my nieces to the Calgary Zoo. The zoo’s spin: education, preservation, research, entertainment. Another perspective? Looks like jail to me. No “habitat” is ever big enough because the context is completely corrupt. I can see their point when in comes to siberian tigers, elephants snow leopards and unruly individual predators that have come too close to human civilization but . . .let the rest go free. We watched a ruddy faced woman verbally harangue a sloth bear for moving out of frame as she was trying to take a “nice video” of him. What it smells like in the monkey house is not what these animals smell in the wild. Let the smell go free. Cooping them up has created rock festival porta toilet conditions for creatures that are used to the fresh air of a highly oxygenated jungle or the dry dusty perfume of the open bush veldt and Savannah. Living so close to your own shit is bad for anything. Why are elk, bison and wolves in there when they could be in beautiful national parks? Think of the glorious situation of the Yellowstone wolves. In 1995 they were reintroduced to complete the food chain by crowning it at the top. The large herbivorous mammals could now be kept in check and could go back to their natural state of having to be wary. These lottery winning Canadian gray wolves were plunked down like a high school football team with an open bar tab at the Playboy mansion. Party time for wolves. Smorgasbord. They thought they would grow to five packs by this time and there are at least double that number. I agree that zoos can serve to help the natural world but lets lose the movie that sells the popcorn. We don’t need to have these giant tourist zoos that have stacked the species to attract a crowd. “Calling all cars! Calling all cars! The animals have escaped from the city zoo and are making their way down Main Street. The monkey got ahold of the keys.” Maybe they could all go back with an apology and a promise that we would not encroach on their territory again. Poor dodo bird misses out on man finally waking up. Like the industrial revolution exploited sweat shop workers missing out on the birth of the trade union. The Bison was just in time for the “Grandfather clause”. Before we extend this enlightened apology to the animals we must first, as descendants of western imperialist idiots, extend the same apology to the first nations people of this earth. We can’t change it all but we can at least admit that people were stolen from, killed, lied to and infected with new diseases. What spin do we put on our own history? Perspective. Looking at the same object from different angles. I’ve now crossed the country stopping at every national heritage site with my family pass. I have the western spin. It all looks pretty good. Even the French/English thing is a nice tidy story without ever mentioning the fact that both powers violated the trust of those who were here. Why do the people who learned how to live within this environment without absurd concepts like zoos get left out of the picture when it comes to the idea of “building this nation”? Mount Rushmore is a nice sculpture but there are people in that country who could look at the mountain the way it used to be and see the great faces in it without having to carve it up. They would undoubtedly be different faces. Man’s ability to control and shape nature is so revered yet relatively unsuccessful? A zoo? First nations hunters apologise to the animal they are hunting and then use it to fulfill a need that perpetuates a biological cycle. I hope the zoo staff whisper sweet apologies to the healthy animals that don’t need to be there. I know they are saving others from certain death but some undoubtedly need to be thanked for their great sacrifice. It doesn’t change anything but at least the animal will get a rationalization and a nice spin on the situation.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:38 PM

Not ready to be separated from the herd. Keeping the family primed for evolution. Everyday punctuated by the intermittent revelation that I will have to wind this down soon. Ominous. Out here burning the postcards of North America into the memory banks of my bloodline. This month has featured pictures of tourists. Tiny flower fires of cigarette butts hitting the highway from the car in front on a cool night. It arcs smoothly and accelerates downward around the tent trailer. Roadside motels turn my childhood into theirs. Nothing is different there. Still neon. Still that fake wood paneling and boomerang patterned arbourite. The old style little soaps and the two libby’s glasses. The stresses all surround finding food, shelter and something new. Enjoying the crap and the pure beauty and the struggle to find one inside the other. Today was Yellowstone. Packed with people moving slowly around a place packed with wildlife moving slowly. There is so much entertainment on both levels. The repeated warning signs stating what should be obvious. Bison are wild animals! Do not approach! Stay 100 yards away from any bear! A dozen people have died of scaldings wandering too near to the geysers and mudpots! Hundreds severely injured! Our family was dazzeled watching hundreds of people ignore all these seemingly obvious suggestions. The potential energy was incredible. Like the circus you wait for the accident. These, however, would not be accidents. They would be appropriate adjustments made to the natural alignment of the world ecosystem. These people have been bred to survive an urban environment and have wandered too far from their herd. They are able to avoid muggings, confidence men, and the bullies of puberty but unable to understand the power of the natural world. I think the strong of the herd should probably be able to function at basic survival level in the natural arena. I would propose that the boiling, goring, mauling and poisoning of these people may serve Darwin’s theory. Thinning the herd. Too stupid to live. At one point a huge bull Bison wandered out onto the road and we put the simple guidelines into action. Pull over. Yield the right of way. Cut the engine. Give the animal room and escape routes. This thing was taller than our van and as big as a small elephant. We watched a family in a mini van pull up beside him and open the sliding side door and windows in order to get great photos. The bull turned, stopped and turned its massive head toward them. His horns were about two feet from the open door with a clear shot. He took pity on them and cut behind their van and began to graze in a new meadow. I wish I could play you a tape of the footage in my head that played out their scenario in quite a different fashion. I think everyone’s brain does the same thing. They see the consequences in vivid detail overlaid simultaneously with the unfolding action. I can see what didn’t happen just as clearly as what did happen. The Buffalo’s massive head smashes down at full throttle onto the removable middle bench seat of the Dodge Caravan. Its rag doll occupants fold themselves around the musky brown haired battering ram as it grinds down and rocks the van onto two of its wheels. The shrieks of the occupants echo through the pines. I watched a middle aged man and his young son climb to the edge of a geyser beyond the signs that said, “stay on the path, extreme danger, unstable ground etc”. In my head I already saw them being blown back from the hole like a Full Metal Jacket out take. A column of stinking sulfuric 700 degree water can be a deft skin bracer if you’re needing a start to your day. The buffalo has emotions and instincts. The geyser does not. It can be the hot blade of natural law. Enjoy your vacation but remember your place. I’m not ready to be thinned from the herd.
posted by Craig Northey at 11:54 PM

On borrowed modem time in a campground. Cody Wyoming. Crossed MI, WI, MN and S.Dakota. camped in the Badlands, Black Hills and Bighorn. Can't say much except the next installments will be epic. Batten down the blogger. Into Jellystone today to ride Old Faithfull.


posted by Craig Northey at 8:06 AM

Pearls of wisdom. Words to live by. I notice that a lot of the older wiser musicians have distilled their philosophies of life down to catch phrases. They have discovered their own mantras through the musical school of hard knocks. Some are evangelical with their message but most save them for the approach of a young student. These crisp messages are delivered, sometimes, to deflect a long and boring conversation. If they engaged in conversation with every fresh faced follower they would have no time for anything else. They would also have to repeat themselves constantly and ...at length. Instead of rudely saying “figure it out yourself” they quickly explain that they have narrowed it down to one simple truth. I realized this was happening when Pat Steward and I were talking to Jimmy Vaughn at the Ottawa Bluesfest. He didn’t have much time. I was gushing about how great it was to hear him play and sing with so much of “that thing”. Pat had tried to let him know that we found him a great role model for musicians as he reminds us all that you have to relax into that pure source. He plays so far back on the beat and with such a spankingly confident and authentic tone. Every note has purpose. His band can run with the big dogs of the swinging groove pack. He said, “Play what you want to hear. You know I heard this once and it stuck with me. At first I didn’t get it but the more I thought about it the more I realized how well it works”. Its such a true notion when you think about how hard it is for some people to stop doing things because they think other people will like them for it. Its his “keep it real”. When he said this I felt like I’d got what I was looking for. You can learn most of what you need to know just by watching and listening but you feel like you got the spiritual souvenir of the event when you get given the pearl of wisdom.
Sharkskin once played with Bo Diddley and after a handful of drinks I went back to talk to Bo. I’d brought a Gretsch guitar for him to sign as he is one of the original kings of that instrument. He popularized his own groove. That’s pretty amazing. He explained that he never signs guitars anymore because people just flip them for cash but that he’d sign mine because he like my playing. I melted inside. He talked a bit about once being a cop and how great it was that he could have a gig like this at the age of seventy. It was then I got the pearl, “stay of drugs man and when everyone is handing you booze say NO WAY and grab yourself a bottle of water”. It was then I realized how many drinks I’d had before working up the nerve to walk up to him with the guitar. I decided it was best to say very little and just nod. Concentrating on my balance I thanked him and slipped off. Did he lay that particular nugget on me because he knew I was a little too glassy eyed? When I look back on all the times I’ve had a few minutes with a musical mentor it seems my memory condenses the experience down to these pearls. If someone were to consciously collect these I think a new musical Confucianism could develop. At the very least they could be sold as bumper stickers at your local music store. Then truckers and musicians, who have lived in symbiosis and in such similar realms, could become even more alike.

We're in West Branch Michigan tonight. La Hacienda Motel. What I know: the desk hostess has a beautiful new unicorn tattoo, their cat "Scooter" has had its tail lopped off by the snowblower just this last winter, and its AAA approved. Don't look for us there. We will be gone up the thumb of the state by the late morning.
posted by Craig Northey at 8:48 PM

I've got myself on the run again so just a quick summary.
The "Kee to Bala" gig. Solid sweaty fun. Sold out and happy weekend crowd. Swam in the lake twice.
The Ottawa Bluesfest: Incredibly fun. Closed out the last night of the fest. Thousands spread out on a beautiful night in a downtown square in view of the Peace Tower and Chateau Laurier. Sliver of a moon. Jimmy Vaughn was great.
Last night at Flamboro Downs. Norm was on a roll all day as the air conditioning died on the bus . . . again. We roasted like ducks in an oven for 6 hours on a crowded highway. Thermosat read 92 degrees at the coolest part of the bus. Highly unpleasant but the rants were very entertaining for my daughter who really doesn't get to hear that much consistent creative swearing. I guess its like having too many of those "bad uncles".
posted by Craig Northey at 7:21 AM

It’s a spectacular view from the stage on the river front in Windsor. I’ve probably played down there four times now and its a sight you don’ t forget. Detroit is pushed up to the edge of the river in a tidal wave of twinkling lights, spires and looming obelisks. The river has just the right amount of rough water to make boating look adventurous and refract and reflect the sun like a sequined shirt in a slow wind. Twilight seems to last a long time because the city takes over with its mass of indirect light and you never notice the transition to darkness. The crowd was big and active and I did my best to look up as much as possible and drink in the surroundings. The temperature was perfect. There were so many good reasons to live for the moment . . . so I did.
posted by Craig Northey at 11:15 PM

It all goes by so fast. When you are in uncharted waters it goes even faster. Loved rejoining the the CJBand tonight in a beautiful outdoor evening concert. If I didn't try too hard the songs came back to me. Too many beer signs and motorcycle ads but that doesn't have to influence the music. For the rebels that some red necked beer drinkers and hell raisers claim to be it is evident that they too have bought into a corporate world. Pirates two hundred years late or prey to modern imaging. They don't jump ship on anything and that includes their favourite products. Less fickle and thus slaves to the most rudimentary marketing. One beer one bike...forever. No matter what the manufacturers achieve in the quality department some people will stay with them. Loyalty is beautiful sometimes. Sometimes it is sad. When the manifesto is that "you should never change as an individual" a pretty solid market opens up for the manufacturer. What the product represents is way more important than the product itself. Where was I. Oh yeah. I only play Fenders & Gibsons because everything else sucks. We came offstage lamenting the technical challenges but enjoyed the recovery time back at the hotel. Nice to be back in the rumble seat. Our bus smells like piss and old cigarettes . . . this may help the music.
posted by Craig Northey at 12:07 AM

Drive-In movie. The only place where Dad condoned smuggling and deceit. “Yes just two please..Oh...right... yes all three of them are under five”. This time its in Kingston Ontario. Sitting out under the stars wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags. Crappy sound coming from inside the car. Soundtrack bounces off the screen with two dozen garbled boxy slapback echoes. Smell of Mosquito coils and popcorn upwind. A meteor shower accompanies the double feature. People communicating through an unwritten language of car horn chirps and honks. Three short one long. A sense memory rush kicks in at the instant the crowd of cars starts to honk for their supper. One car starts and the rest fall in at different pitches and volumes. “The sun is down now and we want the show”, shout the rust buckets and freshly washed cruisers. I can’t believe how good it sounds. At the peak of the second feature the projector jams and the film melts. I haven’t seen this in so long. It’s the aurora borealis of movie going. Rare, startling and floral. Orange lava lamp globules expand toward their black edges. The white hot centre burns through and the sound turns to rhythmic low thumping. The honking starts again. “Heh! Projector guy! Are you seeing what we’re seeing? Fix it!”. Hungry cows have their heads yanked back abruptly from the trough. Mooing in protest. Five minutes and the reel lurches back forward and we all relax back into the trance. Starter motors and the first rev of the engine as credits roll. Like all accidental symphonies it contains rhythms too complex to ever be created through conscious composition. The crunching and scraping of a team’s skates on a defensive zone breakout. Neighbourhood shovels on the driveways after the night’s snowfall. A bank of telephones lighting up at the telethon. Goose wings hitting the water as the flock is startled out of the lake by dogs bark. O.K. Maybe not that soothing or beautiful. Driving off in a trail of headlight sweeps and bounces through the dust. Such a treat.

Now I’m on a train to Toronto from Ottawa. Trains come into town through the back door now that everything on this continent is about the car. You seem to cruise over field and stream without the trappings of the road. The train needs no rest stop or convenience store. No billboards and directives to clutter up your concept of the situation. The train cannot be told where to go and does not get lost. If these situations do arise you are as fucked as fucked can be. Rail disasters are the Dagwood sandwich to the tiny hor’s douvre of a burning thirty car pileup on the T.C.H.. The whistle seems to be sounding constantly as a reminder that people forget the deadly power of a speeding train. People know where the closest 7-11 is but they forget where the tracks cross the road. Trains don’t come by enough. They are not open twenty four seven.
You can’t see forward so everything goes by in a flash. Its all a surprise. This must be in the backs of the minds of those who live near the tracks. This makes them able to ignore the intrusion. A rider sees the laundry on the line, the ride-em toys thrown to the side, the long grass around the things that don’t work but are too heavy to move easily, the bar-b-qs, the pools and sun decks, the half finished boats on weathered frames of 2 x 4s. . .in the backyards of the suburbs as it flies into a town. If the train rises with the track it is at eye level to the back bedroom window on the top floor. Titillation for the voyeur in us all. As people increasingly take their lives away to the backyard this is perhaps a flash card for the anthropologist too. It goes by so fast and sometimes you’re not quite sure that you saw what you saw. Was that a mini bike jumping the swimming pool with sis tracking the arc of her sibling with the muzzle of a pellet rifle? After getting the feeling that certain towns are deserted I realize its best to take the train in to check. I get the feeling that the people near the track have decided nobody can see them. If you wriggle from the girdle and somebody glimpses your dark little secret it is probable that they don’t know where you are or where they are when they saw your forbidden flesh. There are no street names or numbers to reference. There is only a split second to process the information. There is no possibility that the witness can stop to confirm their suspicions. The people passing by on the train are just blurs of pink and brown that those standing by the tracks will never see again. Who cares what they see so why figure out the visual angles and place things in order to protect your privacy. Seen from the train nothing but the natural world seems properly composed. Nature can accomplish this from any angle. Forests and mountains make sense from all sides. Civilization cannot do this. Little things and single things can be right. A ball. A thimble. A house. A sunflower Imac? But it all doesn’t hang together just right from all perspectives. Sometimes it is like seeing a good friend’s face beside you in the mirror. It just seems wrong. Familiar but off kilter. Your own face in the mirror is easier to take than the photographs of it the right way around. You have studied it backwards for so long. You are “on the train” when it comes to how you see yourself. Look at somebody’s face backwards to see how they see themselves.
A driver sees the statement the homeowner wants to make. . . out front on the street where the lawn is better trimmed and the address is clearly visible. He sees the photograph framed by the homeowner. The street side, however, is but the hood ornament of family activity. The facade is all that Hollywood needs when it conjures up a town. All they need is the ten percent of the iceberg sitting above dark and broody waters to conjure up the northern ocean. We all know the weight is in the unseen depths. Hanging heavy as a dozen locomotives. Here is where the damage is done. Civilization is just damage control.
posted by Craig Northey at 7:43 PM

Fathers of Confederation. The bloated, boozy, rich, old white men with the big sideburns decided it all for us. Who better to guide the fate of the patchwork collection of immigrants, hostile post-imperial powers and first nations founders than the David Crosby lookalikes.
I am told that David Crosby is an extremely intelligent and caring individual. Elected to sire the famous Melissa Etheridge child by virtue of his stature as a solid individual . One of my kids said that he wouldn’t want to be rich because, “you can get everything you want and life is so simple and then life isn’t really what it is”. I must defend David Crosby against this notion. He went out of his way to experience a continued state of altered consciousness. I don’t think being rich had as much to do with it as the drugs did although his ability to behave so badly for so long was afforded by his monetary girth and attendant fame. He was out of touch but now, as a result, he’s more in touch than most. He worked so very hard at remaining stoned for so long that I will postulate he would now be a great political asset. Crosby is part of the “refurbished rich” -- not a “burn-out” but a “burn-in”. Refurbished like the gigahertz cordless phone you bought down at the flea market for half the price. All the weakest component parts have been replaced by stronger, newer elements and this makes the bargain all the sweeter. His body has surely suffered irreperable erosion in weathering the pounding hailstorms of cocaine. But as in the case study of Keith Richards it has proved stronger than physical reality. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? No. What should have killed you twenty five times proves that the world is no match for you. Some see this addictive behaviour as weakness...but...what if you overcome your problems? It is common to think that an astronaut might be a good candidate for office. They have the best education the government can afford and have demonstrated bravery in their journey’s into unknown worlds. This shows leadership. I bet Roberta Bondar or Marc Garneau never went to some of the worlds David Crosby went to. I bet he’s been to hundreds more planets and risked life and limb in the process. The astronauts are fed well and are in top notch physical condition. Crosby probably did it all on junk food and a decidedly endomorphic frame. Who better to empathize with the varying perspectives of the disparate cultures in our Canadian “tapestry” than someone who has been several people all at the same time? Who better to understand the different views of a class society than someone who has been in the gutter and the high roller’s suite simultaneously. Who better to understand the legal system than someone who has tested its boundaries. I know he’s not Canadian but I am positive you can find someone like him in this country in about ten minutes. His proximity to Neil Young makes him quasi Canadian at least. Look to the past. Sir John A. MacDonald was a really heavy boozer. I guess we got off on one right foot.
posted by Craig Northey at 11:46 PM

Fully committed. Remain fully committed. Driving in Montreal is about the flow. Some may claim it is terrifying and out of control but it is about the commitment to an idea. There is a definite improvisational art based on the idea that everyone knows what they are doing. People who haven’t decided what they are doing next should be shot out the ass end of the city immediately. They can’t jam with the heavy cats. Get you skills together. Lick your wounds and leave. They offend the sensibilities of those who are shooting arrows in the dark with a high degree of accuracy. This refreshing arrogance provides for a high stakes game. New Yorkers will attest to this. The casualties are mostly pedestrians. I have been told that Montreal has the highest pedestrian casualty rate in Canada. Best not bend down to pick up that juicy apple you just dropped in the crosswalk. Cars will be slightly crumpled. You notice the gaffers tape and the accordion effect on the fenders of so many voitures. No mind. These are but evidence of a harmless brain fart a few weeks ago and not a suggestion that things should change. Heh! Still alive and smoking! My middle guy says that, from the back of the van, driving in Montreal looks like you’re in a video game . When he said it I realized that that is how you can approach the situation. Pretend that you have at least three “lives” and the ability to commit to the flow is much more possible. No problem. Fully committed.

Looking forward to the Colin James shows coming up. Londaon, Bala, Windsor, Ottawa, Dundas & Kingston.
posted by Craig Northey at 7:52 AM

What did your parents fear? I thought my dad feared nothing. This might have been really important to my sense of security. The omnipresence of fear was not something I needed to know about. Everyone is afraid. Its coming if it isn’t there now. There are simple fears that masquerade as complex fears. I fear death. Life good. Death bad. The simplest of fears. It is the root of many decisions and can divert my course at any time. The people who say they don’t fear it can perhaps be categorized in a few ways: a) those with religious grounding b) those who feel they have no reason to live c) people who are pretending. The Kneivels all fear death. If they didn’t then they wouldn’t take any precautions. Young Robbie would put on a bathing suit, peel out of the parking lot on a stock issue street-trail, big bore Honda and launch himself over a swimming pool of sulfuric acid using only a cinder block and a five foot 2 by 6 for a ramp. This would be a hell of a lot more impressive than all the high tech, canyon jumping clap trap. Truth is...its probably more dangerous. He’s brave but sensible. --like any good stuntman. The vintage wooden roller coaster is scarier than the new triple, upside down, corkscrew that winds its way through the mega mall. Its more likely that the rotten old structure can actually throw you out. Adolescence is the best time to experience fearlessness. Immortality courses through your wiry frame. Powered by fresh pink lungs and a ticker like a tether ball of solid muscle you forge a reputation for gonzo and reckless action. This reputation can carry on for quite some time but eventually self preservation becomes an issue.
If your kids figure out that you are afraid the fear cycle gets a stick in the spokes. When lightning strikes within twenty feet of you, the thunder clap almost throws your car off the road, you are unable to clear the windshield under the wall of rain and you have just seen the blurry impressions of two semi trailers headed right at you...you must laugh loudly. If you don’t the preteen and kinder crowd in the back will melt into a microcosmic Bruegel painting. Screaming, bloodshed,tragedy and pathos. Save the “everyone is afraid” lesson for a time when you have to build self-esteem. Awhile back I somehow stumbled upon the idea that we should “teach cowardice”. It was in reference to a different paradigm but, as I have learned, all things are related. Cowardice is important to survival but simple denial and good acting are the yin to cowardice’s yang. You need both in balance. Children should develop the part of themselves that is immortal before having it torn apart by the overwhelming idea that their days are numbered. My parents feared nothing. I was safe to enjoy myself for a spell. I should call my dad.
posted by Craig Northey at 5:43 AM