Epitaph

I hope it is an autumn day
when my magic journey ends,
with scarlet maples blazing forth,
caressed by western winds.

My wish would be for cumulus clouds
scudding across the sky,
with a flight of geese heading south
and honking as they fly.

My family and friends would gently smile,
and recall a life of joy,
and a loving man who looked at life
with the wonder of a boy.

The last of my wine should freely flow
and a Jameson’s or two,
and glad memories would be exchanged,
unembellished, and joyously true.

And my ashes would be scattered
on the waters of the bay,
and my spirit would take flight:
thus I would pass away.

And my people would remember me
when the wild nor’easter blows,
when the moonpath is on the harbour,
and when the lupin grows.

And my spirit will be out there
and their memories will not dim,
and sometimes with a smile they’ll say,
“that reminds me of him.”
.

Distraction

It wasn't through planning,
nor thoughtful foresight,
that I have arrived at this point in time.

It was, rather, through a series
of accidents: procrastination or blunder,
the guidelines were not clear.

It was the passage of time,
unnoticed, sneaking by me
as I, looking elsewhere, was distracted.

Such distraction, I see now,
has lead me here, today:
has made me who I am.

This distraction, with all
of its errors, its omissions:
this now; this joy; this life of mine!

Irish Echoes

Long ago, as another me,
I sat by campfires in a grove of holy trees,
enthralled by the druid's tales of battles
fought by warrior kings who were my kin.

I knew the fear that shrank my body
and sped my heart as we,
naked but for shield and sword,
ran to meet the foe.

As swords flashed amid screaming men,
I sang of my village, my sept...
my love, I sang of you. Your hair
knotted in a neck loop of sacred design
protects me.

Long ago, as another me,
I marched with my clan
to the plains of Boyne
to repel the false King William.
I raged as we were slain:
two uncles, proud and tall,
five cousins, and my brother:
all dead amongst the strangers.

Long ago, as another me,
I was driven by hunger, by need
to preserve my name,
to ride the famine ships west.
Today, in celebration,
my children are taught,
in story, and in music,
to acknowledge who we are.

Autumn Wine

Sometimes, during those infrequent moments
when the lack of outside stimulation
permits continuation of my quest
for inner peace and tranquillity;

Sometimes, when the melancholy rantings
of my Irish soul abate;
when all the things I have done,
and still have to do, stop clamouring;

Sometimes I catch the glimpse of a young man's visions.
Many and varied they prance before me,
Breathing soft sighs of "what if, what if?"
I smile sadly at their adolescent petulance.

Sometimes I hug them to my chest to soothe their confusion,
and tell of dreams: dreams distilled by time,
filtered by love, by experience, by life,
into the heady brew I sip today.

The Desktop Time Machine

On the desktop of my office computer sits a magical device: a screensaver loaded with pictures downloaded from WEBSHOTS. Now generally I am not given to calling software, however cool, magical, but in the case of my screensaver, it becomes, when my computer is inactive for five minutes, a time machine. In twenty second segments, it shows flashes of my life.

Flash: looking down from the mountain café overlooking Bergen harbour. In the fall of 1963 HMCS Bonaventure visited Bergen. Billy Nickson, Neil Parent, Dave Edgar, Mike Arnold and myself got up one Saturday night and sang “Tom Dooley” at a local wine bar. The crowd considered it a welcome respite from the house band, who mostly did Spanish music. We took the funicular up to the top of a mountain overlooking the city, and drank chianti on the patio, overlooking a city that sparkled below us in the crisp autumn air, like a diorama for a god’s Christmas tree.

Flash: the harbour in Mousehole, Cornwall. Terry and I visited in, I believe, 1988, driving down from Heathrow and visiting Stonehenge, “Jamaica Inn,” and Plymouth, enroute. We had small room in a hotel that was composed of various old fishermans apartments overlooking the beauty of Mousehole Harbour. We visited Land’s End, nearby, and viewed a presentation on the death of Arthur.

Flash: the waves breaking in a cove at the Tangalle Beach Hotel in Tangalle Bay, south coast of Sri Lanka -1986. Terry and I could sit on the deck at night and watch the lanterns, carried by the night fishermen in their dugout canoes, with outriggers. The myriad lights, bobing on the night water looked like some of the stars in the southern sky had decided to go for a moonlight swim.

Flash: the Corniche at Cannes - 1964. HMCS Bonaventure was visiting Toulon, and Moe Turmel, Mike Arnold, Neil Parent and I rented a car and drove along the fabled Cote d’azur, visiting Monaco, Cap d’antibe, Cannes and Nice.

Flash: the beach at Grand Anse, Grenada, where Terry, Geoff and I had an absolutely horrid several days in 1992. The air conditioner did not work, the meals at the hotel were too late for Geoff’s schedule, and the humidity was unrelenting. Geoff fell down a cement step and crashed our one attempt at eating at a reasonable time.

Flash: the dunes of Ras al Khaimah -1985. Jack, Mary, Terry and I drove through this lunar landscape on our way to the Holiday Inn at Khor Fakkhan.

And on it goes....every 20 seconds a scene comes up showing an actual place that I have stood, breathed and wondered. And for a magical 20 seconds, I am transported back to the sights, sounds, and feelings of there and then.

The time machine is available for download at daily.webshots.com. The searching for locations takes a lot more time, but, at least in my case, has been well worth the effort.

Leading Seaman Sullivan and HMS Victory

A recent visit to the website of HMS Victory brings to mind my several visits to HM Dockyards in Portsmouth, the site of HMS Victory. HMCS Bonaventure made three visits to Portsmouth in the early to mid 60s. This was at the height of the British Invasion of music, and the sounds of the Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Freddie and the Dreamers, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, the Yardbirds, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Hollies, the Animals, the Bachelors, and the inimitable Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, were everywhere.

The Bonnie was tied up at a jetty about 10 minutes walk from the SouthSea Gate, and to get to the Gate, we had to walk past HMS Victory. One of our favourite haunts in Pompey (RN nickname for Portsmouth, as Slackers was for Halifax, and Diggers was for Digby) was the NAAFI Club, where thirsty sailors could get bargain basement Watney’s Red Barrel, Double Diamond, Rum and Black, and, of course, Newcastle Brown Ale. Oh, and as an aside, the less important things like steak, egg, and chips, Pork Pies, and Steak and Kidney (called Snake and Pygmy Pies by the non-PC Brits) Pies. On the way back to the Dockyard, one passed the Roundabout by the WREN’s Quarters, where Larry Tyce, in the nude, stalked returning WRENs (see my story in Files “Larry Tyce and the NAAFI Roundabout”). Further down the road was the HUGE dancehall called Sunny Southsea, where many of my mates found stimulating female companionship, and excellent music. (One of my mates, Steve “Spiff” Patterson, met his future bride there) Then, just before arriving back at the Dockyard gate, there was typical Fish and Chip shop, in the finest British tradition, where, at that time, they still served wonderful battered slabs of haddock, and the greasiest, but tastiest, chips in the civilised world, wrapped in greaseproof paper and the morning’s newspaper.

Leading Signalman Sullivan was an outstanding sailor, and, as Signals Yeoman, was the Flag Officer’s favourite during exercises. Sully liked his drink, to use a hackneyed euphemism, and was given to closing the NAAFI Club bar every night. He also, as was his right as a Canadian of Irish extraction, disliked the arrogance of the British Navy (remember this was in the early 60s, when the sun never set on the British Empire).

Each night at the NAAFI Sully would hold court over a table of messmates and discuss how we could, in the centre of the British Navy heartland, strike a blow for Canadian naval supremacy. Finally he came up with the idea of floating the Victory. Nelson’s Flagship was in a functioning dry dock, the flooding of which was controlled by hand operated wheels. Sully figured, after a night of Watney’s and several Rum and Blacks, that he was the man for the task, and set the timing of the deed for the next night.

The following night Sully showed up at our usual table with the Canadian Flag hidden under his tunic (no, not the Maple Leaf, but the ‘other’ flag that we had). Our navy flag, the White Ensign, would be no good for masthead flying as it was the same flag used by the RN. Sully left about a half hour before closing time. We tried to prevail on him to wait for our help, but we wanted to close the bar, and Sully was anxious to get on with his challenge.

Walking back to the ship later, replete with fish and chips and a full load of Watney’s aboard, we encountered a flurry of activity around HMS Victory. Shore Patrol were out by the score, and a platoon of armed Royal Marines were surrounding Nelson’s pride. We spoke to Shore Patrol and found out that an RCN Leading Seaman had been taken to cells after being caught trying to flood Victory’s dry dock. What both the Marines and the Shore Patrol missed was Sully’s calling card: we looked up at the Victory, and there, proudly flying over Nelson’s Quarterdeck, was the Canadian Red Ensign.

The flag was discovered by a RCN sub-lieutenant returning to ship later on in the evening, and duly reported to the authorities. Sully was released to our Bosun the next morning, and charged with contradition to the Queen’s Rules and Regulations for the Canadian Navy, in that he “did commit an act to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the Queen’s Royal Canadian Navy” and was sentenced, I believe, to 14 days stoppage of leave.

This epic event so inspired Sully’s shipmates that three of them, Leading Seaman Jim Fanning, Able Seaman Paul Thrasher, and Ordinary Seaman Dave Lister went on the following year, while visiting Roosevelt Roads US Navy Base in Puerto Rico, to liberate the American Flag complete with brass eagle, from the Quarterdeck of the US Marine’s Enlisted Mens Club, much to the chagrin of the United States Marines. Hey, they might be good at the Halls of Montezuma, and really proud on the Shores of Tripoli, but EM Club security leaves them scratching their heads.

The following was my favourite marching song while in the RCN. It never failed to bring goosebumps to my arms, and send a frisson of pride down my spine. Here then, the first verse and chorus of Heart of Oak:

Come cheer up, my lads! 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, not press you like slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?

Chorus
Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men;
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

Larry Tyce and the NAAFI Roundabout

As I had mentioned in "Larry Tyce and the Magnolia Tree," Larry was one of the junior seamen in our Mess (#33), the Communications Mess, on HMCS Bonaventure. In autumn 1964, the Bonaventure was visiting Portsmouth, where we tied up in the Royal Naval Dockyard.

We had been in Portsmouth several times before, and our favourite (and the cheapest!) watering hole was the NAAFI Club, about 3 kms from the Dockyard. The NAAFI was a wonderfully large eating and drinking establishment run by the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institute. It was located on one side of a large roundabout, with the WREN’s barracks on the other side. The roundabout itself was circular, with a fountain at one side and the centre covered with hedges and small trees.

One evening, after a night of drinking Watney’s Red Barrel Ale, and Rum and Blackcurrent, Larry excused himself from our table (where we were discussing the better points of several new British groups: the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Dave Clarke Five), and said he was going back to ship.

About half an hour later, a nurse from the WRENs came in laughing at the sight she had just seen in the middle of the roundabout. Evidently she had heard singing in the roundabout and, coming closer, saw a naked male splashing in the fountain, singing "She loves me, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah." She yelled, and the man ran into the bushes in the centre of the circle.
It was not a great leap of our collective imagination to realise that Larry was "drunk and disorderly." So off we went to rescue him (yet again) from himself. We need not have worried: we found Larry behind the bushes, popping out frequently to amuse a small group of WRENs that had collected to see the crazy colonial in all his splendour. We retrieved his clothes from the fountain, and helped him get dressed and back to ship without further incident.

As a "by the way," HM Dockyards in Portsmouth (called Pompie by British and Canadian sailors) is home to Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, which resides in a dry dock which happened to be on the route from the main gate to HMCS Bonaventure. I have, of course, a story about this which I shall relate later in a piece called "Leading Signalman Sullivan’s Trafalgar: or, Sully and the Attempted Launching of HMS Victory."

Larry Tyce and the Magnolia Tree

One of the many places I visited during my ten years in the Navy was Bermuda. It was my first really foreign port, and I had the privilege of visiting there over a dozen times in my career.

The capital of Bermuda is Hamilton, a small neat and very proper town, with pastel painted houses, stores that were also pastel painted, and only a little bigger than the cottages. Hamilton was also the place that, in several establishments around town, had signs posted stating "no sailors or dogs allowed."

When our ship, the aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure, went to Bermuda, we either tied up at the old RN facility at Ireland's Island, or anchored just off Ireland's Island. Duty boats ferried us back at forth at regular intervals to the dock in Hamilton.

One of our favourite watering places in Hamilton was the American Legion, Outpost Number One, as they served decent meals and indecent drinks at prices that were geared to destitute young servicemen. Outside the legion was a beautiful magnolia tree, with branches overhanging a sidewalk that led to Hamilton's finest church, the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity.

On the day in question, a bunch of us had taken the noon duty boat and had lunch at the legion, spent the afternoon touring on motorbikes, to return to the legion for supper at six. By eight, we had finished dining and were well into sampling Zombies, Margueritas, Singapore Slings, and Tom Collinses.

Larry Tyce was the junior (called OD in the Navy vernacular) in our group, and was very prone to overdrinking. (Larry will is the subject of another vignette called "Larry Tyce and the NAAFI Roundabout.) Larry was falling asleep at the table, so one of us suggested that he take himself down to the quay to catch the next duty boat back to ship. He left with no argument.
A short while later our libations were disturbed by the sound of outrage from the street. A group of pious members of St. George’s Church had been "taking the air" prior to evening church service. It was a beautiful evening, without a cloud in the sky, when suddenly they walked into a shower.

There was Larry, comfortable in the branches of the magnolia. Rather than coming back inside the Legion when he had to empty his bladder, he merely sat up, unzipped, and let it go.

It took some heavy diplomatic negotiations, involving dry cleaning bills, apologies, and a degree of humility uncommon to the Canadian Navy, to resolve the incident. Suffice it to be said that Larry escaped the clutches of the Military Police, we left the Number One Outpost with lighter wallets, and the Number One Outpost was off-limits to Bonaventure personnel until our next trip to Bermuda waters.

Bruce Manson and the Loneliness of the Long Distance Swimmer

The HMCS Algonquin was my first ship, and was small enough in the Communications Department, for fast friendships and for a great esprit de corps to develop. Some of the names I remember (all the way back to 1961!) are Chief Cliff Howell, PO1 Moe Ash, LS Frank Arsenault, LS Ed Gale, LS Bruce Manson, ABs Whitney Wiper, Rick Forward, Jonno Johnson, Arnie Sevigny, Dennis Nolan and Ordinary Seamen Jim Fanning and Rick Stayzer.
HMCS Algonquin (DDE224 callsign CZJX) was a converted V Class destroyer, along with her sister ship, HMCS Crescent. I joined Algonquin in July of 1961 and left her in June of 1962. On Algonquin I travelled to Frobisher Bay, Hamilton Inlet (Labrador), St. John’s, Charlottetown, Bermuda (twice), Newport, Rhode Island, New York City, Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands, Culebra, US VI, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

As a very junior OS, part of my duties was to clean the Officer’s Head. I shared this dubious honour with Jonno, Rick S. and Rick F. We had imaginary contests where we saved and traded pubic hair from the various Officers in the ship. For example, 1 Executive Officer’s pube was worth 3 of the Engineering Officer’s pubes, and so on. Simple things amused us, but best of all was the cockroach races in the main cafeteria. Sailors would catch the roaches in matchboxes and bring them to the cafeteria to race on the tables. Many tots of rum were won and lost during the occasional Saturday night races.

Bruce Manson was about 30 years old, a good Leading Telegraphist, and a quiet, well-liked man. Bruce was living with a woman in Halifax by the name of Mary, and, when we were at sea, he missed her terribly. On our second trip to Bermuda, we tied up at Ireland’s Island, in the old RN dockyard. One afternoon the off-watches from our mess got a bunch of sandwiches and several boxes of beer and walked up to the narrow strait (20 feet across) that separated the island from the next (and main) island of the archipelago.

We had a great time, singing (Whit Wiper brought his guitar) calypso, drinking beer, swimming, and eating sandwiches. Bruce Manson had been extremely homesick all week and the beer soon made him quite maudlin. We laughed at him when he started talking about swimming to Halifax. I believe the distance between Halifax and Bermuda is over a thousand miles.

Time passed, and suddenly Ed Gale called out, "Bruce, get back here!"
Bruce was about 500 yards out to sea, swimming strongly in a slow but determined Australian crawl, his head showing only occasionally above the waves.

Whit ran back to ship and got the Bosun’s Duty party to launch the motor launch, take it up the strait and off after Bruce. He was soon hauled aboard and taken back to ship, protesting all the way.

Bruce spent the night sobering up in Ship’s Cells, and when released in the morning, was suitably chagrined.

Funny thing was, when Ed and I were cleaning the bridge that afternoon, we checked the Navigator’s charts and discovered that Bruce had been swimming bang on the heading for Halifax Harbour approaches.....

We Are Canadian

Over the past year or so I have been receiving, from a variety of sources, forwarded emails that are decidedly against this brilliant multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society that is my Canada. These emails advocate slogans like, “If you don’t like our country the way it is, go back to (fill in just about any country in the world). And, “Dress like we do, or go back to where you came from.” And, “Learn to speak English.” And, “This is a Christian country, and we celebrate Christmas, not Kwanzaa, not Hanukkah, not Ramadan, not Holi.” And so on, ad nauseum.

I personally am proud to be Canadian, and one of Canada’s qualities that makes me proudest is our wonderful mosaic of cultures. It is a pleasure to hear a variety of the world’s great languages being spoken on our streets. I love walking through the varied streets of Little Italy, Chinatown, and the other ethnic neighbourhoods that jewel our cities. The diversity of dress, religion, language, food, customs, and music, makes us a richer nation.

We are Canada! Our history is made up on various immigrant groups arriving on our shores, and, while keeping their own cultures and languages, adapt and change into the Canadians we are today. I love the sound of the names of Canadians: Radjit Singh, Bill Wong, Marcos Alameda, Seamus OFionnain, William Farnsworth, Kathleen Two Feather, Jean Levesque, Mamoud abu Daoud, and on and on.

We are living advertisement for our global community. We are diverse. We are one. We are proud. We are Canadian.

The Winter of Our Discontent

Shakespeare's Richard III begins with the lines "Now is the winter of our discontent.." John Steinbeck, as I am sure you know, took this line as title for his book, The Winter of Our Discontent. Richard was railing against a fate that permitted him to be born deformed physically, and, at least to his mind, mentally. Steinbeck carried the theme forward into modern times to write "a great American tragedy."

It is said that persons of artistic temperament are responsive to changes, be they changes of season, moon phase, location, or fluctuations in the ebb and flow of the cosmos. I do not know if this is true, although certainly the lives of various poets, writers, and artists would indicate some confirmation of the saying's veracity. As an amateur poet, possessed of a melancholy Irish genetic heritage, I am sensitive to changes, particularly of season, and, occasionally, can make use of the emotional highs and lows that change brings me by incorporating the feelings in whatever sweepings the Muse sees fit to leave.

The only problem that I have with retirement is that I am completely content, and with that contentment comes a creative black hole. For the past two weeks, perhaps generated depressing political events, I have been in a very reflective mood. Let me hasten to say that it is a time of growth and questing, a time that will, perhaps, lead to inspiration and further understanding: this is not depression and despair. This mood is my Muse in her most provocative guise, and I am sure that I will benefit from her visit.

Sometimes, in the face of popular belief and consensus, my intelligence seems to me more like belligerence, and my experience as something that has value only to me because of the shading my interpretation of that experience places upon it. A major part of my poetic quest is the struggle to encapsulate the essence of that interpretation into a simple credo in which an essential truth shines forth as an absolute, readily understandable by all who see it. That goal is still some way off, and I still have "miles to go before I sleep..."

The quest continues...

Christmas in the Global Village

As a non-Christian, even I am appalled at the rampant consumerism that rules the Season that is meant as a celebration of Peace and Love. Images of shopping till you drop, and of blatant gluttony during the holiday food-fest speak poorly of the type of society that we are in our global village. What sort of neighbours are we who permit such suffering and privation among others in our village?

I know that some of you feel that my rantings and poetry against social injustice and inequality tend to over simplify the problem, and I recognise that may well be true, but what if military budgets could be put towards feeding the hungry, training the untrained, educating the children, providing safe water for all? What if a small tithe of corporate profits went towards ameliorating the tragedy of global suffering? What if the appalled electorate of democratic countries around the world insisted that our politicians stop being so short-sighted and self-serving, and voted for altruism, and the beginning of a global plan to accomplish a utopia that is actually within reach?

Many of us tend to feel guilty that we are not doing enough individually to help others. Perhaps, but I feel we should all feel guilty about collectively not causing our politicians to do the right thing, and take the first steps towards what we all feel in our hearts to be the obvious and human thing to do.

In a season that, for some, celebrates the birth of a Saviour, and for others, celebrates the concept and the ideal of Peace on earth: in this season in which car bombs, rocket attacks, retaliation, hatred, poisoning, shooting, anger, and greed grab the headlines of ravenous media pandering to a voyeuristic audience: in this season when death and destruction have become a global reality show, I am reminded of the words of a song by a man whom I did not admire personally, but whose music I have much enjoyed...

Imagine --- John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


Peace.