Rest In Peace, Farrah and Michael

An early thought I had at the news of his passing: What will happen to Michael Jackson’s three children? Apparently, he is the only parent they have known. As strange as his adult life always was, as troubled as Michael was, it seems he loved his children, in large part being quite protective of them when it came to their privacy (although there is the incident where he dangled his youngest son from a Berlin hotel window). Yes, he has been accused of child molestation, but in our western world we luckily have the right to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. He was a child that never really had the opportunity to grow into an emotionally mature adult, never having had a so-called normal childhood. Some say he was still a ten-year-old boy. They say he was a “Peter Pan”. There is probably some truth to this.

Who will seek custody of the three?—the third, cynically known as “Blanket” in the media, was apparently adopted from Europe, ancestry unknown. Will it be Debbie Rowe?, someone from the Jackson clan? Likely, where the children go, the money will go. Yes, his estate is apparently heavily in debt. Does it still own the Beatles catalogue? (Commonly it is believed Michael Jackson bought out all of their songs and owns the copyrights, but, in reality, he owns only 50% of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which in turn owns most of the Beatles publishing rights. Paul McCartney, as well as Lennon’s Estate still retain the songwriting rights and receive about 50% of the ongoing publishing revenues for composing the music). Michael’s royalties will continue to come after all the debts are dealt with. How many fans who bought tickets to the fifty sold-out shows(!) will seek reimbursement? I wouldn’t be surprised if many fans decide to keep the tickets as souvenirs, willing to take a financial hit for the now “no shows”.

I’m not a fan of his adult music hits, although I acknowledge that he was extremely talented. His shows, including the one in Vancouver back in November 1984, changed the pop music business forever, in more ways than one—showmanship, stage, lighting, effects, marketing; pushing the industry to new heights of achievement. He deserves the title of “King of Pop”. It is apparent many, many around the world are able and willing to overlook, see past, his many shortcomings, to focus, justifiably, on his amazing talent. I am a fan of his early stardom, even as I admit this did deny him a normal, healthy childhood. I remember such hits as “I Want You Back”, “ABC”, “The Love You Save”, and “I’ll Be There”.

In the late 1990s I knew an English woman (my deceased fiancée; from Bradford, Yorkshire) who moved to the Detroit area in early 1968, finishing high school in Ferndale, Michigan. She graduated Grade 12, then learned her way into a secretarial job at Motown Records, founded by Berry Gordy, Jr., with his publishing company, Jobete Music. She recounted stories of the famous Motown talent that passed through the offices of the agency. Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye were the nicest, most gracious men she met there, in particular Smokey; the Jackson 5 were a talented family group but their dad was apparently a tyrant—accusations and stories—it seems likely the emotional and physical abuse have haunted and tormented Michael all his life.

Farrah Fawcett passed away early yesterday morning. I was one of the many adolescent boys in the 1970s who had her famous bikini poster up on their bedroom wall (iconic 1976 poster of Farrah Fawcett, first published in Life magazine in 1976, the best-selling pin-up poster of all time, with more than 12 million copies sold). Although I did not generally watch or have access to TV, I still knew of her enough to admire her flawless beauty. Many girls at the time had to have her hair style, and did, whether with it they looked good or not. I saw maybe one or two episodes of Charlie’s Angels at one or another friend’s house. Farrah only participated for one season of the show, 1976–1977. She starred in a number of theatrical and television movies over the years. And, for a while I did have a copy of the December 1995 issue of Playboy magazine, where she posed nude, causing an uproar in some quarters. It became the best-selling issue of the 1990s with over four million copies sold worldwide.

She bravely, heart-achingly, revealed her hardships and challenges battling cancer.

Farrah’s impact, as pop culture figure and sex symbol, was particularly strong on the Generation Jones teens of the 1970s, my generation. With the passing of these two popular culture icons, the 1970s and the 1980s are now officially over.

I, for one, in another twenty years, will remember who died the same day as Michael Jackson.

Rest In Peace, Farrah and Michael.

Michael Joseph Jackson (Friday, August 29, 1958–Thursday, June 25, 2009), age 50.

Farrah Leni Fawcett (Sunday, February 2, 1947–Thursday, June 25, 2009), age 62.

I lived in Paradise

I lived in Paradise, on a slope of the north shore of Lac Léman. This was not the Paradise of my childhood, but of my early adult years.

It all started with drying dishes. Early December 1981, I was still living at home. This chore was one of the family expectations, just as lolling around without a job or an immediate plan was not. Mother set me an ultimatum—find a job within a week or move out.

A childhood friend from White Rock called a little later that evening with a job offer in a door assembly plant, Surrey Door in Surrey-Newton. And I would be living with them in White Rock.

At the same time, I discussed with my parents the wish of mine to experience Camphill life, originating in 1979 when a former Newton Dee peer of father’s, Hartmut von Jeetze, came to visit, talking about and showing slides of Camphill Copake in upper New York State. I was much impressed by what I heard and saw. The seed was planted.

My parents both had experiences and still some peripheral connections with Camphill and Rudolf Steiner communities—father as a gardener in Camphill Newton Dee, Aberdeen, Scotland from February 1951 to February 1954; mother also as a gardener, in Bussigny near Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland from April 1955 to autumn 1956.

I wrote to ten different communities—names and addresses we pulled from a list we had from an Anthroposophical Initiatives directory booklet, focusing on Westdeutschland, France, and Switzerland. Two months later, only two or three had responded. St-Prex was my only hope, the others at that time not needing workers. I answered with a detailed life story, curriculum vitae, reiterating my wish to learn French and gain an initial experience working with Children in Need of Special Care. Plans were made for me to attend, summer 1982 to summer 1983, for a practicum year and a chance to learn the language, leaving the door open for a longer stay dependent on the outcome of my initial year there. I still had a current passport and saved most of my working money for a return airline ticket and some initial spending money.

I already knew from father and reading that the Camphill Movement was born in 1939–1940 out of the initiative of Dr. Karl König. In the late 1930s in Wien he had gathered a small group of students, studying the teachings and indications of Rudolf Steiner. He and the students fled in different directions with the Nazi invasion of Austria. England opened its doors to refugees and Dr. König entered by invitation. He was given a twenty-five-acre estate called Kirkton House, about seven miles from Aberdeen, Scotland. One by one the students found their way there during 1939. The war broke out, the men were classified as enemy aliens and interned on the Isle of Man. Meanwhile, the publisher W.F. Macmillan purchased a larger estate called Camphill House, hence the movement’s name, and the women moved there June 1, 1940, commencing their work with twelve children, one of the first attempts at living in residence with special needs children.

A few weeks were spent at home again; relaxing, swimming, and tubing in the Cowichan River with six-packs of beer, Labatt Blue, tied to the air valve stem; and getting some gear and possessions together. I purchased the red 1982 edition of Baedeker’s Switzerland, pouring over it in some detail, slung out in our backyard hammock between the walnut tree and a tree pole. I was to show up in Genève as a tourist and Perceval would take care of procuring me a work permit.

Like many, I believed (somewhat) in the clichés about the Swiss—brown cows, Alps, yodelling, chocolate, watches, and cuckoo clocks—but within days of my arrival I was already learning and experiencing how much more of this fascinating people and country there was.

I had always been impressed with Switzerland’s neutrality and admired her form of democracy, which only deepened during my residence there—this small, mountainous confederation on a very unique path of destiny and practicing a direct form of democracy through her constitution, structure of government, and the many cantonal, regional, and federal referendums the Swiss vote on throughout the year. To this day I see the Confoederatio Helvetica as the best and only authentic example of democracy so far in existence. Other nations laying claim to this title are little more than half- or pseudo-democracies.

Over time, Switzerland revealed more and more the multitude of riches in her history, geography, food, literature, and culture, many of her qualities distinct along linguistic lines. I experienced almost nothing of her Romansch and Italian aspects, but sampled a decent taste of her Schwyzerdütsch regions, and became immersed in many aspects of la Suisse Romande, comprised of Genève, the western half of Valais, Neuchâtel, the Jura, most of Fribourg, and above all the canton Vaud with its historical imperative of Liberté et Patrie as the centrepiece of its flag and cantonal shield of white and green. Looking back, La Romandie has become my second homeland, in fact, my spiritual home just as Canada is my physical home and Germany my ancestral home.

I borrowed a half dozen books from the Cowichan branch of the Vancouver Island Public Library, where I worked the last two years of high school earning my escape money correctly reshelving returned books and magazines in the stacks, flirting each shift with my co-worker Laurie Hamilton.

I read that Switzerland’s beginnings can be traced back to the 12th millennium BC. Finds of Stone Age arrowheads have been made at the Bieler See and Lac de Neuchâtel. Near Brig, archaeological digs have uncovered elaborate burial sites indicating settlement of the western region and the Valais in the early Stone Age. From the Iron Age there is evidence of the existence of a pre-celtic culture. Later, the Celtic Helvetii resolved to unite and settle the Jura. The Romans were unable to set foot in the Valais until about 58 BC, when Caesar and Augustus were the first to conquer Helvetian lands, making them part of the Roman Empire. About the year 300, the Primicerius Maurice and his Theban Legion, recruited in Africa, were martyred at Agaunum, today St-Maurice, for refusing to worship the Roman deities and slay their fellow Christians throughout central Europe. Soon thereafter, Christianity spread throughout the southern Swiss region.

I savoured the descriptions of the various regions and drooled over the large-format colour images in the calendars my godmother, Ursula Nitschke in Winterthur, sent us at Christmas each year. In particular: the Jura, made in large part of gentle rolling hills in gradual ascent, lonesome woods and fields in between, and scattered about, attractive little towns and pretty villages; the slopes of the Jura falling to the shores of the Bieler See and the Lac de Neuchâtel, with a number of castles and burgs scattered among the vineyards; in contrast, Biel/Bienne and Neuchâtel, modern industrial towns; across the larger lake the Murtensee and Murten/Morat, and a little further along Fribourg/Freiburg, due to its mostly preserved medieval character, one of Switzerland’s most beautiful cities; down in the farthest western corner of the Confederation, at the lower end of the Lac Léman where the Rhône leaves for its long route through France, Genève, pulsating with life under a somewhat austere protestant past, business-like and of great importance in the world of international politics and science; Jura-like landscape accompanying the lake about halfway, then receding northerly behind the Vaud hinterland; and the Rhône valley predominated by the massive Alps.

I noted the humorous words of the Swiss writer and essayist Ludwig Hohl, 1904–1980, “Die Schweizer sind stolz darauf, so schöne Berge geschaffen zu haben.”

In the years since, my parents find it on occasion amusing to remind me, that span of five years (1982–1987 with a year off in-between) was my Finishing School.

Les Bienveillantes de Jonathan Littell/The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell

Les Bienveillantes de Jonathan Littell, Éditions Gallimard, 2006, 1401 pages, paperback. It won both the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française 2006 and the Prix Goncourt 2006.

The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 2009, 992 pages, hardcover.

This is a book I would prefer reading in its original French. Jonathan Littell is a Francophone American. As I am unable to find a copy in French to borrow, I settled for a library copy of the English translation by Charlotte Mandell.

Summer is here!

Yeah, am I happy or what? Summer made her entrance in the pre-dawn hours on Sunday. Now just four days of work remain for me at both jobs (including today). Then my long-awaited vacation starts.

Tomorrow the children have their last full day of school, then Thursday morning until 10 o’clock, at which time they’ll receive their report cards and also take home certificates and the contents of their desks. A few of them have already left in the last week or two for two- and three-month visits to their home countries (Serbia, China, and the Philippines, for example). A couple of children are sick with a summer cold or allergies. The biggest elementary school in B.C., Marlborough, is closed since last week, Wednesday, June 17th, for seven days due to five cases of the infamous (but I think, as yet, still over-rated) H1N1 (swine) flu. They’re scheduled to reopen tomorrow, Wednesday, to finish the school year. Thursday, after our children have gone for the summer—hopefully summer fun!—we staff will continue with the annual clean up and organizing of school inventory and supplies, packing up everything for storage so the custodial staff can give the premises a thorough top-to-bottom clean for Tuesday, September 8th, the day of our return. Then we will all head to a local Chinese restaurant for an extended lunch and some goodbyes for the few staff (teachers and a counsellor) either retiring or relocating to other schools. The remainder of the afternoon, more cleanup awaits us, including Friday after our staff breakfast.

Friday I finish my last evening shift at the group home before my seven weeks of vacation. Ah!, the much-deserved rewards of 21 years of union seniority!

And, this coming Saturday evening, my sixteen-year-old son flies in with Air Canada at about 10:30 pm from Saint John, New Brunswick, for a four-week visit. We’ll do plenty around the Lower Mainland, mostly by bus and bicycle, and on foot, visiting relatives and friends, a few stores, a museum or two, the Canada Day celebrations at Canada Place, the VFMF (Vancouver Folk Music Festival), swim in the salt and the sweet (English Bay and Spanish Banks and Jericho, maybe Sasamat Lake, the outdoor Kitsilano Pool), including one week camping at Lightning Lake in Manning Park and re-roofing our parents’ house (new asphalt shingles).

So, everyone, have a great summer. Don’t drink and drive! Stay safe but have fun.

Nina Hagen

Nina Catharina Hagen, geboren am Freitag den 11. März, 1955 in Ostberlin, ist eine deutsche Sängerin.

This is my favourite Nina Hagen album. I purchased the LP in a small music kiosk in the Klett-Passage under the Stuttgart Hbf. (main train station), summer 1981. Of course, I still have it and it is in very good condition. She will always be the Queen of Punk, but her talent is also much more than that, as she has a theatrical, operatic voice and electric stage presence with her still-stunning physical beauty (a gifted opera student/child prodigy since age nine), covering a number of genres and music styles, from high notes to bass growls. I include myself in her ravenous cult following.

Discography, and below, track listing of Nina Hagen Band (CBS 83136, album, vinyl LP, Germany, 1978).

Side A:

1. TV-Glotzer (White Punks On Dope)—5:15 (German lyrics by N. Hagen, written by Spooner,Evans, Steen)

2. Rangehn—3:27 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by B. Potschka)

3. Unbeschreiblich weiblich—3:30 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by M. Praeker)

4. Auf’m Bahnhof Zoo—5:25 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by M. Praeker, R. Heil)

5. Naturträne—4:05 (music by, lyrics by N. Hagen)

Side B:

1. Superboy—4:01 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by H. Mitteregger)

2. Heiß—4:11 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by B. Potschka, H. Mitteregger, M. Praeker, N. Hagen, R. Heil)

3. Fisch im Wasser—0:51 (music by, lyrics by N. Hagen)

4. Auf’m Friedhof—6:15 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by B. Potschka, H. Mitteregger)

5. Der Spinner—3:15 (lyrics by N. Hagen, music by H. Mitteregger)

6. Pank—1:45 (lyrics by A. Forster, N. Hagen, music by A. Forster)

Credits:

Arranged by, Producer—Nina Hagen Band

Artwork by (Cover Design)—Friedhelm Meinass

Bass, Vocals—Manne Praeker

Drums, Vibraphone (Ziepraphon)—Herwig Mitteregger

Engineer (Assistant), Co-producer—Ralph Nowy

Guitar, Vocals—Bernhard Potschka

Keyboards—Reinhold Heil

Lead Vocals—Nina Hagen

Photography—Jim Rakete

Producer, Engineer—Tom Müller

Technician—Michael Zimmerling

Recorded at Hansa Studios, Berlin, Deutschland
Printed inner sleeve of photographs and A4 folder insert of lyrics and credits

Is it possible?

Is it possible? Can it be that smart bimbos really do exist!? No urban myth? No more upside down license plate wrap-arounds on pink life-size barbiemobiles? Her videos are hilarious! Check them out and maybe(?) you’ll learn something new, starting with “Antidisestablishmentarianism”, followed by her “hot for words channel”, and her web site, http://www.hotforwords.com/.

I said to myself, “Who is this chick?” She is Marina Orlova, age 28, a philologist (one who studies linguistics and etymology). She loves the book, Oxford English Dictionary (the etymologist’s bible). She loves to discuss the origins of words. If you have a word you’d like her to discuss, please request it at her website (see above). Yes, “Intelligence is sexy!”

Prayer and reading

Here’s a book I haven’t touched in quite some time: A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, Vintage, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1996, 384 pages, First Canadian Edition, paperback.

Last Monday night, June 1, 2009, home late at my usual 11:55 pm from my evening job, I pulled this book from my shelves and started reading on page 11 while sitting on the reading “throne”—the toilet. The page was marked by a book marker of sorts—a standard-size sheet of paper, neatly folded in two, printed from the internet: “The Serenity Prayer” by Reinhold Niebuhr. I have a special relationship to this prayer. A copy of it was given to me at birth.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3, 5–6

This prayer has walked with me through all the days, all the nights, climbed the mountains and entered the valleys of my life; accompanied me on the many trails, paths, roads, streets, avenues, boulevards, highways, autobahns, rail lines; here and there, north and south, east and west.

Books, many books have also marked my life, still walk with me. Some I have lost, some I have given away as gifts, some I have traded or sold, but many that were read to me in early childhood and that I have read sit regally upon my sagging, laden shelves, beacons in my life. They are the milestones I look back on, recalling my past, mnemonics extracting the riches of life from the depths of my soul. They feed my daily life, they point at my future, enlightening my writing, and feeding my heart, mind, and soul.

Classic automobile favourites

Across the street from our house in South Vancouver, B.C., Canada in the early evening, Saturday, July 5, 2008.

© Copyright photograph by Cohen Isaac Scharnberg, July 2008

“The icing on the cake” beside our house in South Vancouver, B.C. in the mid-morning, Monday, December 22, 2008.

© Copyright photograph by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, December 2008

Returning from a day of walking the West Vancouver Seawall, starting near Park Royal, between Ambleside Beach and Dundarave Pier. Here we are in Goldie downtown Vancouver heading east on Georgia St. shortly before 5:30 pm, Sunday, May 24, 2009.

© Copyright photograph by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, May 2009

In the world of automobiles, I am partial to well-engineered, quality-built German cars (not all of them—I don’t like the Porsche except for the classic 356 Speedster, first cousin of the original VW Beetle; nor do I care for the BMW). I love the classic, vintage, air-cooled Volkswagen (the People’s Car) and the older Mercedes-Benz.

I grew up with Volkswagens. After I made my first appearance—the old King’s Daughter Hospital (now long gone) in Duncan, Vancouver Island, B.C.—father and mother took me home in the blue-green 1961 VW Beetle, bumping along the meandering Old Lake Cowichan Highway to Lake Cowichan, Cowichan Lake, Vancouver Island, B.C. In time I inherited the 1961 Beetle’s slightly rusty Hazet tool kit (still a complete set) that sat inside the spare under the hood.

In the summer of 1965, my parents purchased new from Volkswagen Pacific in Vancouver, a 1965 VW Type 2 (T1c) Model 231 (cargo doors right, left hand drive) Kombi (first generation, split-window), VIN 235 xxx xxx, powered by a 1965 53-hp 1493-cc (1500) four-cylinder, horizontally-opposed, air-cooled engine, engine number code starting with H and followed by seven digits, with Solex 30 PICT-1 carburetor, strangely enough, with Model 221 Standard Microbus colour scheme of exterior body colours, L289 (17) blue white above waistline, L512 (38) velvet green below waistline, upholstery in mesh grey (83), sporting 14-inch wheels, front signals in amber, basic interior of just a rear bench seat, no middle bench seat, no interior headliner or side panels, no carpet, just interior hardboard panels in the front cab section, covering the doors, roof, and behind the nose. (I also inherited the license plate wrap-around labelled Volkswagen Pacific). A week later mother tipped it on its right side as a result of over-steering—a problem with the first-generation Type 2s. Two empty glass milk bottles flew off the shelf under the dash and did not break!, my baby brother flew from his wicker basket on the back bench and quickly landed back in it!, and two pulp mill chipper trucks hauling full twin trailers in convoy, quickly stopped and pulled us through the driver’s door sliding window (for some reason the door wouldn’t open). Since then, all the body work and realignment couldn’t put the slightly warped unibody straight again.

In 1973 my parents replaced the Kombi with a white 1971 VW Crew Cab from Bowmel Volkswagen (official dealer) in Duncan. Father built a red plywood canopy and took the VW with mother and four children in tow, on a memorable road trip into Northern Mexico—one week down, two weeks in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, one week back home—December 1973 to January 1974.

Late 1977, this pickup was replaced with an almost new white and egg yolk yellow 1977 VW Bus, from the owner of Bowmel Volkswagen (since 1972; formerly Maguire Motors) in Duncan, soon discovered to be a real lemon cursed with a multitude of problems. Nonetheless, a second road trip to Mexico, December 1978 to January 1979. The mechanical and electrical gremlins accompanied us on this trip but fortunately Mexico is a country replete with creative, industrious VW mechanics. Alas, this Bus soured my parents on VWs forever. Since then, they’ve driven a panoply of Japanese and domestic vehicles.

My list of favourites:

1961 VW Beetle/1962 VW Beetle
1968 VW Beetle
1971 VW Beetle/1971 VW Super Beetle
1965 VW Microbus, Kombi, Panel, Westfalia camper, Single Cab, and Crew Cab (Type 2, split-window)

1968 VW Bus, Kombi, Panel, Westfalia camper, Single Cab, and Crew Cab (Type 2, bay window)

1971 VW Bus, Kombi, Panel, Westfalia camper, Single Cab, and Crew Cab (Type 2, bay window)

1985 Mercedes-Benz W123 model, 300D Turbo Diesel

Of all the cars I’ve owned since my very first at age 21 in March 1983 (1968 Chevrolet Chevy II Nova, powered by a 250-cu.-in. 6-cylinder engine with 2-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, 4-door sedan, avocado green, Series 13, body style 69, no power brakes, no power steering, no A/C—what a great car she was!, I named her Cisca after a Dutch woman I knew), my favourites are all German.

In order of ownership, some at the same time!, they were:

1972 VW Super Beetle, forest green
1974 VW Kombi, white
1972 VW Super Beetle, white
1970 VW Kombi, white and sky blue
1973 VW Beetle, yellow, named Buttercup
1971 VW Super Beetle, baby blue, named Kathleen*
1968 VW Westfalia camper, ivory, named Sophia**

1985 Mercedes-Benz W123 model, 300D Turbo Diesel, champagne, named Goldie, current vehicle

*denotes my two favourites: The 1971 VW Super Beetle, bought her in Delta, B.C., great condition, beautiful speciman.

**the early-1968 VW Type 2 (T2a, “Early Bay”) Model 238 (sliding side door right, left hand drive) Westfalia (second generation, bay window), VIN 238 xxx xxx, powered by a 1971 60-hp 1584-cc (1600) four-cylinder, horizontally-opposed, dual-port air-cooled engine, engine number code starting with AE and followed by seven digits, with Solex 34 PICT-3 carburetor, colour scheme of exterior body colour L567 (46) ivory, upholstery in 45 medium grey 68, 4-speed manual transmission, sporting 14-inch wheels, double CV-joints, low front signals just above front bumper, with original model SO-68 Westfalia interior of rear bench seat that pulls out to become a ¾-wide bed, rear deck mattress, storage locker under rear bench seat, clothes closet with vanity mirror and hanging rod and shelves aft of sliding door, adjoining linen closet, rear ceiling shelf cabinet, ceiling and walls insulated and wood-panelled in baltic birch, yellow vinyl seat coverings, vinyl-tiled floor, hinged folding dinette table, front rear-facing bench seat with storage area immediately aft of driver bucket seat and walk-through divider, 1.6-cubic foot cabinet with ice box and drain, white plastic sink with drainage and venting system and hinged lid/counter surface, 7.5-gallon water tank and manually operated faucet pump, catch-all shelf unit, front lid mosquito net pop-up roof with canvas tent, rear wall with zippered flaps and zippered screen openings, cot bed inside pop-up roof, rear luggage rack, removable children’s hammock for over front seats, two ceiling lamps (one each over sink and dinette table) of three 10-watt bulbs each, small ceiling light in centre of compartment, transistorized 12-volt 110–125 volt electrical receptacle with double outlet, 15-ampere AC cord for plugging into campsite receptacles, original bay window privacy curtain, original yellow and brown checkered curtains for all windows, and fully-functional louvered side windows with removable screens. She was purchased new from the official VW dealer somewhere in or near downtown San Diego. I still have her original sales receipt, owner’s manual, and service manual—regularly serviced and stamped. She appeared to be based in Indio, Coachella Valley, California, while in my possession still sporting an AAA (The Automobile Club of Southern California) decal in bottom right corner of the windshield. She was a member of some surf club based in San Clemente, California. Imported up to Victoria, B.C. in the early 1980s, legend has it this camper drove to the famous 1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, New York and back to the West Coast; and that John Muir, VW mechanic extraordinaire and writer of the famous manual, How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual Of Step By Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, once serviced and tuned my baby’s 1600-cc motor. I took her camping many times (southern Vancouver Island, Saltspring Island, Hornby Island, Alice Lake up past Squamish, Hicks Lake near Harrison Hot Springs), including a road trip to Grande Prairie, Alberta in August 1994, up the Coquihalla Highway and Summit from Hope, Merritt, Kamloops, Blue River, Valemount, Jasper, then Hinton through Grande Cache to Grande Prairie on Highway 40 (at the time still known as “the Highway to Hell”, the last year it was sand and gravel surface strewn with the debris of blown tires, pieces of wood, and branches, before a proper paving) to Grande Prairie, back by way of Dawson Creek, Prince George, Quesnel, Lac La Hache, 100 Mile House, Clinton, Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Spences Bridge, Lytton, down the Fraser Canyon, Hope, and back to New Westminster. Alas, after owning her from 1992 t0 2000, I gave her up to a VW enthusiast-restorer-collector in Coquitlam, B.C., wanting to give her one more good life. At the time I was broke. I couldn’t afford the $10,000.00 or $15,000.00 restoration she needed and deserved. I sure miss that camper. One day I’ll search for another fine specimen of the bay windows.

I won’t bother mentioning the other half dozen or so cars I’ve owned and driven into the ground in the last twenty-six years!

My dream VW is the 1971 VW Bus (deluxe model with chrome trim and sliding sun roof). It is said this was the best year for the Type 2 model. My dream Bug is the 1971 VW Super Beetle, like the baby blue I had.

Our current vehicle, Goldie, is a 1985 Mercedes-Benz W123 model, 300D Turbo Diesel sedan (4-door), powered by a 123-hp OM617.952 five-cylinder diesel engine with 4-speed automatic transmission (standard in turbo diesel models), colour scheme of champagne exterior, MB-Tex (Mercedes-Benz Texturized Punctured Vinyl) upholstery, interior wood trim, passenger side exterior mirror (standard on T models), power windows with rear-seat switch cut-outs, vacuum powered central locking, Standheizung (pre-start timer controlled engine heating), self-locking differential, sun roof, air conditioning, climate control, “Alpine” horn (selectable quieter horn), Tempomat (cruise control), power steering (standard after August 1982), power (vacuum servo) assisted disc brakes (standard on all W123 models).

The North American W123s differ from the European W123s due to United States Department of Transportation requirements. Notable exterior differences included: Larger bumpers; round, sealed-beam headlights/fog lamps. Early cars were delivered with clear fog lamps through to model year 1979, later units with yellow (our Benz has these); location of ID-tag on A-pillar; emission control devices. Production of the W123 model was based in Sindelfingen, Baden-Württemberg, Westdeutschland.

Iona Beach Regional Park

Iona Jetty, Iona Beach Regional Park, with Georgia Strait, Gulf Islands, and Vancouver Island in the distance.

Iona Jetty, the south jetty, juts out nearly four kilometres (2.5 miles) into the Strait; recreational visitors can walk or bicycle on the twin gravel trails atop and beside the large sewage pipe that stretches the length of the jetty.

View northward from Iona Jetty with low tide, North Arm Jetty, Vancouver shoreline, and the North Shore Mountains in the distance.

North Arm Jetty, the north jetty, while longer, is not as popular; it is a sandy bar (as opposed to the gravel and concrete structure of Iona Jetty) that stretches towards the northwest, running parallel to the Vancouver shoreline and terminating at the University Endowment Lands, almost directly across from the University of British Columbia campus. The famous Wreck Beach sits below UBC at the mouth of the North Arm of the Fraser River.

Iona Beach Regional Park with the Iona Jetty in distance, Iona Island, Richmond, B.C., Canada in the evening of Sunday, May 31, 2009.

© Copyright photographs by Viktoria Iakovleva, May 2009

Let’s clear up some past confusion: Several times I’ve been applauded and congratulated on my keen eye and camera skills, but it’s not me! Most of the nature and landscape photography was done by my friend Viktoria. As much as I’d love to use my old Nikon FE2 on excursions into the natural world, I usually don’t have the time. So, she is kind enough to let me post some of her work here. She also posts some of her work on a Russian photography site. I’m always anal about posting copyrights, but, somehow this doesn’t always seem to be obvious enough, so, I state the obvious here again. Viktoria walked Iona, Viktoria captured the beautiful images, Sunday afternoon and evening. She deserves the credit.

I myself love walking the length of the Iona Jetty, standing out in the wind of the Georgia Strait, and hiking the length of the North Arm Jetty, watching the tugs and barges slowly pass by, up or downstream. In past years I have also enjoyed days basking in the nude at Wreck Beach. Nudism is an old German tradition, known in Deutschland as FKK (Freikörperkultur). It is the most natural thing in the world to be naked indoors or outdoors. After all, this is how we arrived here.

“High Flight”

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Pitt Meadows, B.C., Canada on Monday, May 18, 2009

© Copyright photographs by Viktoria Iakovleva, May 2009

“Bored”

I am often curious what my son and the youth of today do in their spare time. The world they inhabit is much different from the one I had. I try to stay current with today’s realities even if I often don’t understand them.

I also knew boredom. I suspect most of us did from time to time. But being “bored” can be a gift if you embrace it and let it lead you along paths of inventiveness and creativity. These were the fruits I was graced with, courtesy of a healthy, loving childhood.

In the big cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Montréal, Calgary, Edmonton, a relatively care-free adolescence like I had in the 1970s is likely non-existent, probably even in today’s suburbs—I don’t know. I didn’t have to worry about gang shootings, serial killers, and child abductors, if I even knew about stuff like that. Although, even then the occasional child abduction or murder did happen. And, a school yard fight usually involved fists, maybe at the worst in very rare instances, a knife or a stiletto—bad enough, that—but not guns, group swarmings, drive-by targeted shootings, mass school lock downs, mass school killings. The many of us who did watch TV (I didn’t until I was thirteen) did not get bombarded with the same high volume of violent images that today’s young are fed through TV, movies, video games, music, and Internet.

Clifford Olson and his like put the fear into parents and families in the 1980s. Expo ’86 changed Vancouver, more for the worse, less for the good. A certain degree of innocence has disappeared. Mass media and the hidden controlling powers seem intent on instilling fear in our hearts, minds, and souls until people become rigid and inflexible, until free thinking is suppressed and eventually annihilated. Public and most private education participates in this indoctrination. I believe the dark powers want to keep us from truth, wisdom, and knowledge—the fruits in adult life that grow from the seeds of awe, veneration, and love in childhood.

Of course, evil in its many guises, bad situations, and nasty people have always existed, but, maybe because I was outside most of the time, I became street wise at an earlier age, I had a healthy, natural instinct and a good but controlled sense of danger. I had mastery of my environment—the inner and outer worlds. Now fear and evil walks the sidewalks and the trails, stalks the parks and the woods, and holds hostage many hearts and minds. The fear is easily mindless, not necessarily accompanied by anything concrete. And I suspect that fear itself creates some of today’s evils. It works like the compounding interest of a maxed-out credit card, of an overdue bank loan, of a suffocating mortgage in danger of foreclosing. Who really wants to live like that?

I think today’s multi-sensory and mass media bombardment has stunted our lives, amputated a healthy sense and balance of life, even erased it, suppressed it. So, I’m relieved in just a small way to have seen first hand (on my visits there, by what my son tells me, and what others say and have experienced) that in a smaller city like Saint John, New Brunswick, there is still some semblance of what we previous generations still had in our years of youth. Yes, even Saint John has its darknesses and challenges, but it still beats a place like Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby, or Langley by being about 30 years behind the times in some aspects of life. Many there still do not lock their car or house doors. And I’m relieved to know my son isn’t interested in drugs, alcohol, and loveless sex.

In the video, my son Cohen is the taller teen in the middle of the three walking down the street in front of his house on the west side of Saint John, New Brunswick. Cohen is sixteen now, in Grade 11, turning seventeen in the early autumn. I view their short cinematic creation as one simplistic, stereotypical summation of one of today’s many realities. And, yes, my son does partake in much of the grand buffet of the ever-present electronic media world.

Will there still be enough of today’s young people that have a spark, a good core, a good heart, standing strong, conscious in thinking, feeling, willing in balance to the daily attacks they endure in this rat race, me-first, world?

Check out the video the four of them choreographed, scripted, and acted in, at YouTube.

All because Joe P. Comeau asked, “What happens when you get bored?”

Maybe this was an inspiration too? Watch “La Velvet Nikkita” at YouTube.