Category: Uncategorized

To My Blook, Where the Writing Hobby Took Me

June 11, 2023

You may ask what is a blook? Well, the word is a combination of the words blog and book. And a blook is a book consisting of blogs. It is a new word, first coined in 2003 by Jeff Jarvis, a well-known journalist from New York. Since then, several blooks have been published and the “Blooker” prize was established in 2006, fashioned from the “Booker” prize. Julia and Julie, by Julie Powell, was awarded the first Blooker prize in 2006; it is a cookbook based on blogs preparing the recipes of Julia Childs (a film by the same name was made in 2009).

I was intrigued by the concept of a blook and was inspired to compile my own do one since I have been blogging for a few years. The pandemic was the trigger for the start of my blogging. When avoiding people, and staying home had become not only desirable but periodically mandatory, when my gym and community center where I played bridge closed, what was I to do at home? I was retired with plenty of time on my hands. Expressing personal opinions and describing my activities in writing seemed like a good idea to keep me busy.

But my blogging begs another question: “What experience did I have in writing”? This is a relevant question since I had never worked as a professional writer; my writing was limited to technical and policy papers. After I retired, I did publish two books, a memoir, and a travel book.

I can anticipate your next question: “What made me write these books”? And the trigger to start writing my memoir was a friend who challenged me to write it because she said that my children do not know who I am. And she was right: I was a Hungarian refugee/immigrant to Canada in 1956, married a Welsh girl, spoke English at home, and never discussed much of my history with the family.

All of our children attended university, married, and settled in the US, limiting opportunities to discuss my early background. When my friend challenged me to write my memoir, I had to agree that she was right, and I got motivated and even excited, to write my memoir, primarily for my children and grandchildren.

To prepare myself for writing my first book, the memoir, I enrolled in the online university Coursera. I took several of their writing courses. The Coursera Zoom classes include lectures led by Wesleyan University professors and writing assignments reviewed by fellow students. I found it interesting reviewing others’ work, some people I found to be excellent writers, while others were novices. I thought I was somewhere between the two camps.

And I enjoyed receiving comments on my work, I learned much from these comments: one reviewer rebuked me for sloppy writing when I said I was at Kennedy Airport in New York City in 1957. The reviewer criticized me for my poor memory or for not having done the research. The correct name at that time was “Idlewild” airport. It is important to check your facts, especially when you write about events sixty years ago. Overall, I found the courses very helpful in practicing my writing skills.

To further my writing knowledge, I also signed up for writing blogs such as The Write Practice and took free Zoom lectures on how to do a memoir by Marion Roach Smith. In addition to reading “How to do memoir” books, I also read many memoirs. My favorite was “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, written with humor, and sensitivity about growing up in South Africa having a white father and a black mother. 

After a year’s work, I published my memoirs on Kindle Publishing and sent copies to all family members, awaiting their response. Some thought it was interesting and commented, “I never knew this” while one granddaughter found parts of it boring. At any rate, the family got to know me a little bit better.

Buoyed by having a book published, I was motivated to embark on another one, this time on our travels in Southeast Asia. As before, I read travel books such as the annual Best American Travel Writing series and took some Zoom courses as well on how to write about travel. My favorite travel authors were Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson.

I learned a few key lessons from the courses I have taken and the experience I have accumulated writing my two books: write about subjects that you know, express your personal opinions and feelings, and “show and not tell”.

The first one seems obvious, but it is interesting how easily one can get involved in matters unfamiliar to you, only to start looking up the internet for information. Although that avenue is useful and available to everyone, it is mostly informational. I found people are much more interested in your personal experiences and opinions. For example, a hotel in Barbados might tout its beauty on the oceanfront while someone who has been there may point out that the furniture is old and decrepit.

Before I started studying the fine art of writing my writing had reflected my positive, non-critical attitude.  But I soon realized that, in the writing of others, my interest was drawn more to their personal reflections and observations rather than my descriptive, non-critical approach.

And “show and not tell’ advises you not to use general statements like “it was a beautiful sky’ which is a “tell”, but rather “show” it in terms of its color, shading, cloud formation, and your reaction to it and let the reader interpret your description.

Having improved my writing skills and enjoying writing, I wondered, “What is next?” Another book was not of interest to me, and the pandemic had shut us down from travel and socializing. But I was still interested in writing, and I had the time to carry on with writing short pieces on select subjects where I express my thoughts and opinions.  

And so, I started writing; I wrote blogs about the pandemic, about the Ukrainian war, and about Canadian and Ottawa issues and controversies. The number of blogs I have written has grown and I thought that I should try to weave them together into a book format, the idea behind a blook. Look for my Kindle blook by the end of the year!

Riding the Virginia Creeper

May 20, 2023

Our arrival in Damascus, to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail was exciting. We struggled with the lock on the Vacation Rental by Owner’s (VRBO) door with no success until we turned the knob counterclockwise. With the door open, we faced a large, young woman, staring at us along with two crawling babies on the floor. I am not sure who was more surprised; us or the woman. When we got our breath back, we tried to explain that we had reserved this house and showed the documentation. She was speechless and yelled for her husband who appeared in shorts. He was a huge specimen and we got worried about guns in the house, having read recently people being shot just by driving onto a driveway. The husband explained that he rented this unit for six months and provided us with the name of his contact.  We concluded that we had no choice but to leave and find another place to stay. It was seven o’clock by that time, but fortunately, still light.

My daughter Megan, who had made the reservation through VRBO for a “premier” host called VRBO on the phone to find answers. After an hour and a half, VRBO offered money to rent accommodation in the vicinity because they were unable to find accommodations in Damascus for us; we were also told that the unit we had rented had been sold six months earlier, We drove and called around Damascus, searching for vacant units and found the River Trail Cabins had a couple of vacant units which we immediately occupied. These log cabins were exceptionally well appointed with a small kitchen where we cooked our supper and ate it on the verandah, overlooking the trail and the river. A large hot tub was next to the bed, but it was way too late to fill it up to use it.

We had come to Damascus to meet up with our daughter and husband who were on their way to Blacksburg, Virginia to pick up their youngest son from Virginia Tech where he finished his first year of college, and to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail. The Trail starts in Abington, VA, and stretches to Whitetop Mountain in the Rogers National Recreation Area, close to the North Carolina border. It is thirty-four miles long. Damascus is halfway along the trail, from where it climbs 2000 feet.

The right-of-way for the trail goes back to the 1880s when a railroad line was built to haul iron and coal. When the mines were depleted and it became uneconomic, the line was shut down. In 1977, the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, owner of the rail line, asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to allow the abandonment of the rail line. Soon after the ICC’s approval, the removal of the tracks began, and the right-of-way was turned into a recreation area by the US National Forest Service and the National Park Service. A caboose at the center of Damascus commemorates, and reminds people of, the original purpose of the trail. The trail now accommodates hikers, cyclists, and equestrians, crosses a National Park and the Appalachian trail, as well as many rebuilt trestle bridges.  

On our first morning, we walked our bikes down the steep embankment on which the log cabins were built, to find the trail, eager to try it out.  We found the trail surface smooth, often with small gravel that was easy to ride. The trail wound its way through Damascus, passing by the SunDog Shuttle service where we inquired about their $25 shuttle service to the end of the line on Whitetop Mountain. We told them we’d be back the next day to experience the 17-mile downhill ride from Whitetop Mountain to Damascus.  In the meantime, we decided to cycle up the trail to experience the ride.

Once we left the town, we rode in a bushy, leafy valley, next to the Laurel River that was maybe fifty feet across, and which looked like whitewater kayaking territory although too shallow for my taste. The river flowed fast over large rocks creating a crashing but relaxing sound. We met some cyclists coming down the trail; it looked like easy riding with the low gradient.

The sun was up creating a dapple effect on the trail that bothered my vision, but also made me sweat although I had only a t-shirt on. We rode for a couple of hours, covered maybe ten miles, and decided to stop and have our lunch on a bench. There was also an outdoor toilet and a parking lot behind us.  We realized that it was possible to drive to several points along the trail, park the car and start riding from there.

Turning back towards Damascus, we cranked the pedal of our bikes a few times and rode for considerable distances, coasting much of the way with a slight downhill gradient; the going was easy and provided an opportunity for observing the forest around us. The return trip was fast, we arrived back at our home in less than an hour.

The next day we drove to SunDog Shuttle service and got on the bus with a dozen other passengers with a trailer behind us loaded with our bikes. The friendly driver related stories of cyclists along the trail; one story was funny in that some wild pigs chased one of the cyclists for a quarter of a mile before going back into the forest. The story did not give us a comfortable feeling, hoping we would not meet a wild pig on our ride down the Creeper Trail.

The driver also said that during the once-a-year Appalachian Trail days, up to a hundred thousand people converge in Damascus. The people attending these days are current and past hikers of the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail days this year are from May 19 to 21; it was a good thing that we did not come at that time; it would have been overly crowded.

On the forty-minute ride to our starting point on Whitetop Mountain we, of course, conversed with our fellow riders, who came from Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina. One cyclist shared his experience in doing the Trail this last winter that he described as a somewhat freezy trail with icy spots that he had to navigate.

And we were all white-haired! I expected more young people, but I found our fellow cyclists close to our age, and that made me feel very good; this was a mature, recreational cycling crowd. Many people rented bikes at SunDog indicating that they may not have been serious cyclists but came for the experience.

After the requisite photo at the trailhead, in front of the billboard identifying the Trail and distances along the trail, we jumped on our bikes, and we were flying down the slope that had a gradient of five percent. There were some rocky spots and I had to grab tightly the handlebar that almost jumped out of my hands a few times. The first few miles went fast and after half an hour we stopped for a break to catch our breath.

Eleven miles down the trail we found the Creeper’s Trail Café and enjoyed a morning coffee where we met with a group of cyclists from Tennessee; they were part of a walking club in Knoxville and came for a different experience. I engaged with one of the riders who surprised me by showing me his electric bike. I asked him why he would need an e-bike when this trail was all sloping down, would his bike start rolling down too fast? He agreed that he did not need such a bike but back home he rode on hilly terrain.

Further down we stopped for our lunch sitting on a bench and watched the other cyclists go by, waving to them. When passing a cyclist, the typical protocol was to call out “on your left”, when approaching from behind. Everybody followed this routine. We arrived back at the shuttle place in three hours, a seventeen-mile ride with stops. I was not tired, since we rode downhill almost all the time, but my butt was sore from all the bouncing on some rocky parts, and where we crossed the numerous trestle bridges where their beginning and end was a jump up and then down, with our bikes.

SunDog shuttle service has a well-equipped store for cycle equipment and clothing, and I could not resist buying a t-shirt with the Creeper Trail logo, and with text on the back: “You do not stop riding because you get old, you get old because you stop riding”. That was apropos. Good advice!

I would recommend the Virginia Creeper Trail for cyclists of all kinds with a stay at the River Trail Cabins. And have a chat with the people at the SunDog Shuttle service for local color.

Where to Ukrainian Refugees?

April 30, 2023

Ukraine is preparing for a major attempt to recover some of the territory lost to the Russians. It is over a year ago that Russia initiated an unprovoked war on Ukraine, calling it a “special operation”, a euphemism by any stretch of the imagination for what it is, a war. This “special operation” displaced over fifteen million people in Ukraine, and over eight million people left the country.

Under the Canada Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program, Canada offered to take in an unlimited number of Ukrainians seeking shelter from the war. To date, close to a million applications have been received under this program, of which two-thirds have been approved, and 150,000 have already arrived in Canada.

This new immigration program  (CUAET) was developed for, and with, Ukrainians, and it provides temporary residence status for three years for successful applicants, with $3,000 for each adult and $1,500 for each child. After three years, those Ukrainians who want to stay in Canada can apply for permanent residence.

A major benefit of CUAET is that the newcomers can work immediately in Canada. A major disadvantage of the program is that people arriving under the CUAET do not receive many of the social adjustment programs that refugees receive, such as housing assistance.

The Ukrainians prefer this new program to the refugee program because it allows them to work immediately while the latter takes much longer to gain resident status that permits work. And many Ukrainians want to go home, hoping for an end to the war in less than three years. Many left families at home, including husbands, who could not leave because of their obligation to serve in the military.

Thinking about the Russian invasion, which started during the Covid pandemic, I wondered how the virus affected Ukrainians. Only thirty-five percent of Ukrainians were vaccinated against Covid in 2022 (compared to the eighty percent vaccination rate in Canada). War is tough during a pandemic; people escape to refugee camps where the crowding provides the perfect environment for the spread of the airborne virus.

The numbers bear out the damage Covid wrought on Ukraine; five million people got infected and 100,000 people died out of their population of thirty-two million (compared to Canada where also five million people got infected, and fifty-one thousand people died out of a population of forty-eight million people).  

The adversities faced by Ukrainians forced many to leave their country, and it reminded me of my experience escaping from Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

Hungary was under Russian occupation from 1944 when the Russians defeated Germany. The spontaneous uprising of 1956 provided a window to escape the prison-like existence in Hungary. Many people left their families behind but those who left had no intention of returning home, in contrast to the recent Ukrainian exodus.  

We came to Canada as refugees, which was a new program developed for the Hungarians by then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Over 35,000 Hungarians arrived in Canada following the uprising in 1956.

I remember what we had to do to adjust to Canadian life: learn  English, acquire usable skills, go back to school, and secure a job to make a living. It took a few years to start a modest life in an apartment and a few more years to buy our first car. Father had to redo his university coursework in medicine and certification for a medical license, including residency with twenty-four-hour shifts at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. My older brother and I attended university and worked part-time as well as full-time during the summers to cover university costs. Mother worked at a store. Immigrants go through multi-year adjustments to settle in a country new to them.   The first few years were not easy, but my parents were determined they would not return to Hungary.

Many of the recently arrived Ukrainians have a different goal; they hope to return home after the war. A worthwhile wish but is it reasonable? Negotiations between the two warring parties have not been initiated and are unlikely to be successful since both sides have firm and non-negotiable positions. Militarily, the two sides are at a standstill, Ukraine assisted by NATO and Russia assisted by North Korea, and other countries with weaponry. A resolution seems elusive. It may take years. 

And in time, immigrants embrace the new country they settle in and get to like it. I remember a handful of Hungarian refugees who decided to go home after a few years.  They could not acquire a workable knowledge of the English language mostly because of sticking with family members and speaking Hungarian all the time. They could not get used to Canadian culture, especially gender equality in Canada. They also missed their family back home. And they were all older. But the great majority of the Hungarian refugees stayed and prospered in Canada.

I do not believe you ever go home and feel at home in the old country you left. You have changed and your old country has changed and going home is a disappointing experience. And this will be especially true of Ukraine with the devastation of its cities by the Russian bombing. Reconstruction will take years.

I think most Ukrainians who have come to Canada over the past year will stay and prosper here.

Is Covid Over?

April 26, 2023

Is Covid over? Is it time for a post-mortem? No, not really; although President Biden announced that COVID is over, the World Health Organization (WHO) is still to announce it. And I just saw many people at my local grocery store with masks. It is over but let’s just wait until the masks disappear.

Although the pandemic was formally introduced by WHO on March 11, 2020, it was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The pandemic in Canada triggered lockdowns and the government called for masking and distancing. And vaccinations would become the go-to weapon with which to fight it, whenever Canada could secure a supply of it. Do you remember?

But we did not have vaccines and a major pharmaceutical company was to be built. We were told it would take over a year for its construction to be followed by production and distribution in a couple of years! Fortunately, we did not have to wait for a Canadian vaccine.

By late summer of 2020, Pfizer and Moderna developed and began to distribute vaccines and our Minister responsible for procurement announced that she had ordered up to four hundred million vaccines without telling us when they would be ready. I was amazed that Canada would order almost ten times the number of vaccines required for our population, but we began to import and receive the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines before any vaccines were produced in Canada. The provincial government set up what turned out to be a cumbersome and slow vaccination process through community centers and schools.

The stores painted lines for one-way traffic to avoid crowding between shelves, and symbols appeared on the floor indicating where one should stand at the cash, six feet apart. The same was done outside of stores, markings were painted six feet apart and we lined up often in terribly cold weather, waiting to be let indoors, limited by the store’s capacity, based on its square footage. Attendants at store entrances monitored our entry.

My bridge club at the community center closed dictated by the local health authority. Subsuequently, when it was allowed to open, the club could not figure out how to” “distance” around bridge tables and how to clean cards for each hand to be dealt.

My gym closed.

And we hoped for a reopening of facilities in a brief period that did not materialize, and when it did, another lockdown was instituted caused by the next wave of the virus.

Vaccination has become the major instrument of defense against the virus. While most people receieved the vaccine volunarily, some vehemently opposed it based on faulty science.

Looking back three years since the pandemic started, I think that its consequences have been significant. For example, the combination of masking, distancing, and lockdowns has resulted in isolation. You stayed at home and avoided people; the government encouraged it. That, in turn, has brought about a need for socializing, for meeting and talking with people in person and not only on the phone.

Yes, ZOOM has blossomed, and many people were happy with the technology and continued with their bridge and book clubs. But after a while, many felt isolated and bored staring at the computer screen; at the fast dealing by the computer for bridge hands and lack of friendly conversation; at the truncated discussion of book clubs using ZOOM, without the personal get-together, supplanted by coffee and chit-chat.

People’s isolation was further exacerbated by private industry, and public agencies sending people home to work, in an attempt to reduce physical proximity among people. But in many businesses, people could not work at home and were laid off, with an enormous impact on the hospitality and service industries; coffee shops, and restaurants closed.

To avoid a cratering economy, the federal government started pumping out money, like water through a fire hose, to assist businesses and people to survive the effects of the pandemic. It has taken some time, but the long-term consequences of the infusion of enormous amounts of government money resulted in inflation. And surprise, surprise: inflation caused unionized people to push for higher salaries and as an example of this trend, we have the largest public service union in Canada on strike today.

In its ultimate wisdom, the federal government closed the border for most people to enter the country, even though the spread of COVID in Canada was internal from people having the virus already. The US responded in kind to the closure of the border by Canada, and that created a bit of a hardship for us, having all of our children and grandchildren in the US.

With a gradual easing of travel to and from the US, the government introduced the ArriveCan system, a computerized entry system that one had to fill in a day before the entry into Canada, requiring proof of vaccination. The US responded in kind and required vaccination from Canadians. This border entry control system often led to unpleasant experiences, such as getting tested for Covid in time on both sides of the border. And it has also led to a new and flourishing Covid-testing industry.

Reflecting on the past three years, I realize that I need a measure of social interaction and the number of such interactions may vary with people, but it is something that I need for my sanity.

 Yes, I participated in many ZOOM meetings. For example, we set up a group of friends and presented to each other, in turn, our travel experiences. We ordered a take-out dinner and ate and drank together with friends via ZOOM. But in the end, we concluded that going out together was much more fun.

This is where I am now; I shed the use of my mask but carry one in my back pocket should a medical institution or other agency require one (such as the Ottawa Hospital). When I go shopping and see masked people, I ignore them but respect their use of it. Hopefully, it will not be long before vaccinations become an annual affair similar to the cold vaccine and we’ll be able to forget about the last three years.

My Thoughts on the PSAC Strike

April 21, 2023

Driving by the Post Office I observed hundreds of civil servants clutching coffee mugs and walking back and forth for their four-hour strike duty a day for which they get $75 from the union. It was cold and they were bundled up.

About 150,000 civil servants, a third of all federal employees, are on strike, and the already long waiting times for passports will get longer.

I remembered the time working for the federal government when I went to work at five in the morning to avoid crossing picket lines and avoid potentially rough altercations with striking union members.

As always, the major item of contention is salaries. The two sides are not far apart and although the union’s demand is not way out of line, in my opinion, the sudden frugality of the government surprised me. In the past few years, this government has spent money like it was coming out of a firehose.

In all union negotiations,  the discussion focuses on how salaries should track or not, inflation, and cost-of-living increases. The examples brought forward by both sides include public and private unions. The trouble I have with these discussions is the lack of debate on job security and the benefits packages that the various organizations provide. I worked in both public and private organizations and there are no questions in my mind that job security is pretty well 100 percent in the public sector (anecdotal evidence shows it can take up to two years to fire someone in the government for incompetence) while much, much less in private groups.

When I worked in the federal public service, my job security was never in question with an attractive benefits plan, including a pension. In the private sector, I lost my job when an international company bought the company. And the contribution to my pension by the private company was much less than what the federal government provided. On the positive side, though, the shares in the private company were offered as bonuses at year-end, which could fluctuate in price reflecting the fortunes of the company, a significant risk factor.

So my question is: should federal employees be compensated less than private company employees performing comparable duties because of the benefits of a secure job with full benefits?

My friend who ran an architectural office downtown told me years ago that he always had an awfully tough time hiring a secretary, at what he thought was a competitive salary, because the federal government paid so much more for similarly employed people.

And my other question is: should federal employees who choose the work-at-home model be compensated less than those who go to work every day because of the financial and other benefits of working at home?

Consider the savings on transportation; whether one uses public transit or a private car, the savings are substantial in dollar terms as well as in time. Commuting times range up to a couple of hours a day depending on where one lives. And gas for the car, parking (civil servants have to pay for parking), and depreciation of the car add up to a tidy sum. Neither is the cost of public transit a bargain.

And many people buy coffee and lunch at work. When I worked for the federal government, I tried to get some fresh air and went for a short walk during my lunch hour. I often ended up in a bookstore buying a book which I would not have done while working at home.

I also have to mention that the informality of working at home saves money on clothing, which, although casual these days in the office, still require decent clothing.

But beyond the financial and time savings working at home are the incredible benefits provided by the flexibility of being at home. Think of a young family where the work-at-home spouse can take the children to the school bus stop and pick them up upon return. Or, doing away with a nanny, should both parents work? Or, going on a two-hour bike ride at lunchtime. Unless the employee has to be on the phone during working hours, the work can be done at any time during the day or at night.

The work-at-home model has tremendous benefits but also costs; depending on the personality of the employee, some may miss the camaraderie with fellow workers, and miss learning what is going on in the office. Others are quite happy to work alone. And, of course, there has to be space for an office in the home, which may not be available for all.

The adoption of the work-at-model is a major negotiating item although I have not seen a study on what percentage of federal civil servants would like to do it. But if it is a bargaining chip, I think that those who work at home should get less remuneration compared to those doing the same job at the office. The financial savings have a dollar value and the flexibility of working at home is also a benefit that should be costed out.

My considered view is that the job security and benefits package enjoyed by federal civil servants, combined with the option of working at home, should be fully costed when compared to other union agreements and the inflation rate.