Hey mate, we’re not that different

There are those who say that Canada is one of the four corners of the world. Surely, the same can be said of Australia. Like distant cousins, Canada and Australia share a great many similarities, although they tend to be opposites. Polar opposites. The Great White North has ice and snow, while the Land of Oz has its sand and sun. Aussies drive on the left side of the road, love to surf, and happily eat an unholy yeast extract called Vegemite. Canucks, on the other hand, drive on the right side, tend to ski, and line their bellies with the goodness of maple syrup. What you might find surprising is how, on a Sunday night in Sydney, I found myself in a throwback, hunchback hockey rink, watching the city beer league finals. At a time of year when hockey is just hitting its stride in Canada, it is spring in Australia and hockey teams are gunning for playoff glory, and giving everything they’ve got. Hockey may seem an unlikely pastime in Oz, where the game of rugby is practically a religion and a sheet of ice is about as common as a man-eating koala, but the two sports are actually quite similar. Hockey is to ice what rugby is to grass, so it should come as no surprise that our national game is part of the Australian sports landscape. It is the world’s game now, and brings us all closer together. It certainly did on Sunday night. The captain of the home team, to no one’s real surprise, was the only Canadian on the roster; a strong and steady defenceman who understood the game. His bench consisted of a number of inspired Aussies, a couple Europeans, and a Mexican goalie whose game plan consisted of flopping around in the crease and hoping for the best. They probably couldn’t beat a Bantam Rep squad in small town Canada, but that wasn’t the point. The point was the game remained the same, and their passion for it was still very much there. Since the rink didn’t have a bar, or popcorn machine, we were forced to make do on our own; and the players seemed to enjoy the loud and generous cheering, as if someone finally understood what they were doing out there. The game itself ended in a tie, thanks to a dramatic last-minute goal, and the fans were treated to a shootout. The players weren’t too thrilled about it, but the hometown Aussie fans were eating it up like Vegemite on a stick. The most telling moment of the night came after the game, as fans mingled with players, hockey bags hit the ground with that familiar clink of bottles, and everyone kicked back with a cold one or two. With the swing of a stick you could hit someone from British Columbia, one from Great Britain, one more from Boston, and another who lived within walking distance of the rink. It was pond hockey all over again, with friends arriving from everywhere, all sharing in the game and magic that is hockey. It was enough to make anyone feel at home - and if that’s what hockey has given the world, then Canada can be very proud indeed.

Sucking up to survivor bees

A couple years ago, an old friend of mine had the good sense to acquire some lands. From his comfortable country home, he watches his children play happily in the grass, listens to coyotes howl under a blanket of stars, and strolls with his wife along streams and tree-lined trails. The best part, he said, is being able to scratch yourself whenever you like, and not worry if anybody is watching. Every spring, in an effort to keep the estate from being totally overtaken by nature, he organizes a work party to clean things up. Later in the summer, he always rewards his workers with a bonfire, featuring the roasted flesh of an assortment of animals, and no vegetables unless they are, at some point, deep fried. He calls it the Man Bash. A Man Bash is different to a man and woman. While a woman might think it is an invitation to gripe about how men have faltered over the past year, men use it as an opportunity to smoke, drink, swear, belch, and do all those other things you can’t get away with in church. This year’s Man Bash involved an old driving shed, and removing the colony of bees that now call it home. Some people enjoy having honey bees around. I knew a frugal farmer who allowed a swarm of bees to live in the south eave of his farmhouse for years. Every winter, he would climb up and steal the honey for his family. The way I see it, those bees were only paying a little rent. My friend had the same idea this summer, but his project ground to a halt when the first board was peeled back and revealed about 20,000 angry honey bees. End of the day, boys. No point in getting over our heads here, when we could be getting into a cold beverage instead. A bee expert was called, and the first question out of his mouth was “are they furry, or are they shiny?” It seems, when honey experts get called out to check on hives, they often wind up looking into a misidentified hornet’s nest. And this is serious business, because a lot of honey bees are dying off, and no one has been able to figure out why. Upon further questioning, the bee man estimated a total of 40,000 to 60,000 bees, perhaps a possible 80,000, would be living in the shed wall by the time fall arrived; and he was ecstatic, muttering something about “survivor bees.” The expert was thrilled the bees were not only surviving on their own in the shed, but thriving, and he wanted to mix them in with his own colony to bolster its numbers. When he got to the wall, however, he realized the swarm overmatched his skill and experience, and pulled the plug. End of the day, boys. No point in getting in over our heads. The last I heard, the bee expert had promised to come back after he had invented a bee vacuum. Invented a bee vacuum. Incredible. I could just picture the man, working over an old electric motor, trying to get the speed and suction just right in order to collect bees by the thousands without harming too many of them. It won’t be easy, and I wish him the best of luck. They say necessity is the mother of invention and, if those bees are as important as he thinks, they deserve to be saved. I just hope I’m there when it gets tested in the field.

Sweet, clean, tadpole-free water

Right from the start, Mom tried to keep us safe. She would tell us to look both ways before crossing the street, don’t pet strange dogs, keep your tongue out of the electrical sockets, and don’t drink bleach. Bleach was, and is, powerful stuff. Mom was wise to keep it out of reach, bringing it down only for the most important and challenging of cleaning jobs. The smell of bleach was the smell of clean. Bottom line. The power of bleach hit home for me at an early age, when my cousin had us catch a bucket full of little black tadpoles and watch, awestruck, as he dropped them into a bowl of bleach and they disintegrated in front of our very eyes. It was magic, it was scary, and it was science. A sight like that sticks with you, and I would like to mention that to my cousin, but it will be a few more years before he is out on parole. They say it is for the best. Meanwhile, they pour bleach into our drinking water. If it isn’t bleach that keeps my drinking water smelling so fresh and clean, it sure seems like it. I’m no expert when it comes to chemistry, but chlorine is hard to hide. And why should anyone be concerned. There’s nothing quite like the smell of bleach to make a person feel like they are on the right track, eliminating everything from their drinking water the size of a tadpole or smaller. You never know, maybe tap water kills everything, including listeriosis, halitosis and the common cold. I’ve been drinking tap water by the gallon for years, and I can’t remember the last time I caught a cold. Thanks to tap water, and the cleaning power of bleach, I can eat all the luncheon meat I want now, without a care in the world. And, I don’t think bottled water can say that. Many consumers remain suspicious of tap water, and continue to believe that bottled water is safer, despite the environmental impact of plastic bottles, and the fact that municipal water undergoes more stringent testing. Somewhere along the line, water has become a marketing ploy, a product that corporations use to create distrust in municipal tap water and boost profits. Yet, water is not a product. It is a building block of life on this planet, making bottled water redundant, and essentially unnecessary. Water in plastic-wrapped, petroleum-based bottles is the most ridiculous product that has been mass marketed in the last 15 years, especially when we are already paying for sweet, clean, tadpole-free water out of our taps. There has been a push recently to rethink our lust for bottled water, to ban the bottle and prevent some of that plastic from entering landfills. London is on board, along with Charlottetown, St. John’s and a smattering of towns in British Columbia. I would like to see many more places fall in line, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. So, the next time you feel a cold coming on, or a headache, toothache or gut ache, suck down a gallon of tap water. I’ll wager you’ll be as right as rain in no time. Keep a jug on the go in the fridge and let all the bleach evaporate out, and there’s no reason you won’t live to be 200 or more. That alone should make your Mom proud.

The summer of the superhero

It’s been that kind of a summer; a summer where everywhere you turn, up pops another superhero. Not too many months ago, The Incredible Hulk was on a big screen rampage. Iron Man showed moviegoers his mettle, and then Batman rewrote the movie record books with the emergence of The Dark Knight. Even Hancock became an unlikely superhero on the silver screen this summer. If you see Hancock, be sure to remind him of his new heroic status. I try to every chance I get. And then I had my own chance to become a superhero. As our vehicle left the IMAX theatre, in which I had just seen Batman kick all shades of evil behind and the Joker set a new standard for film’s best bad guy, the pickup truck screaming down the 401 ahead of us created a small mishap by losing an aluminum stepladder out the back. A normal person would notice this problem and stop on the side of the road to deal with it—but this is the mighty 401, where the FIDO rule (Forget it. Drive on.) is followed to the letter. The ladder skipped along the blacktop in front of us, and our driver leaned on the brakes to avoid it. As the car skimmed to a stop just shy of the ladder, we realized our problems were only beginning. We were now stopped dead in the “slow” lane of the 401, which means the cars behind us were only doing about a buck ten. The moment called for action, so I unbuckled my safety belt, exited the vehicle just like the police and other sensible people tell you not to, and grabbed the stupid ladder. It was heavier than anticipated, but not so heavy that a superhero in training couldn’t fire it unceremoniously about ten yards into the ditch. Problem solved. Under six seconds. As I raced back to the vehicle, a woman in a little car pulled up in an effort to pass. What she didn’t see was the man who so generously cleared her way. What she did see rattled her badly; a sweating, 300-pound ogre running barefoot into oncoming traffic on the busiest stretch of road in Canada. The ogre did the only thing that seemed fitting at the time, and yelled at the woman as he ran past her car: “I am part of the solution, not part of the problem!” I was never properly thanked for my act of selfless heroics, but such is the life of the reluctant superhero. Once the adrenaline wore off, we decided the new hero in the car needed a name. Now, naming a superhero is no simple task, and must be given great thought and care. A name goes a long way to determining a hero’s success. Of course, my friends settled on Burnout. Burnout, in case you are wondering, is the kind of hero who rides around on a motorized lawn chair and carries a lighter and can of WD40 as his secret weapon. His sidekick would be called Lowlife, or Skid Marks, or Scraps, and the two of them would patrol the 400 series highways in an old truck, seeking motorists in distress and collecting useful debris that gets tossed from passing vehicles. Becoming a superhero isn’t something most average folks plan on. Sometimes, it just happens, and you have to be ready to deal with it. Sometimes, you just have to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem.