Cancer DriveLine Society

Okay, I'm done now.  I've had my 15 minutes of fame, and I'm so glad to share it with the folks at the Cancer DriveLine Society who helped me through that particularly difficult time.

Vital People - CDLS

Farewell to my American friends. It's over.

This opinion piece was published in the Vancouver Sun on Feb 3/25.  I think it speaks to many of us.

Opinion: Farewell to my American friends. It's over.
By Pete McMartin

Goodbye, America.

It’s been nice knowing you.

Goodbye New York, and your Jewish delicatessens with corned beef sandwiches stacked as high as your skyline.

Goodbye Detroit, my boyhood neighbour, and so long to Tiger Stadium, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Motown.

Goodbye Bellingham, Seattle and Portland — how I’ll miss my Cascadian cousins with our shared Pacific sensibilities. And while I’m at it, goodbye to the cheap gas and shoreline cottages of Point Roberts, America’s appendix dangling just below the border not a mile from me. What was once so close has never been so far.

Goodbye Stag Leap’s Pinot Noir, Maker’s Mark bourbon, and Hebrew National hotdogs. My tastebuds mourn.

Goodbye to the cowards on both sides of the border who have demonstrated that whatever fidelity to democratic ideals they profess to have extends only so far as their self-interest. They should get a real job, say, in a chain gang.

Goodbye to anyone, again on both sides of the border, who bends the knee to Trump, rather than standing up to him, as any self-respecting person would and should, and telling him to piss off. Goodbye to a culture that demands we bend the knee.

Goodbye languid vacations in Maui and Palm Springs. My next winter vacation will be in a sunny climate other than any America can offer, and preferably in a country the U.S. has treated as disdainfully as mine. I’ll have more than a few to pick from.

Most painful of all, goodbye to my American friends, some of whom I have known all my life, and some of whom I’ve collected along the way. I can cross your border but no longer wish to: Your Narcissist-in-Chief has decreed that my countrymen and I have the choice of becoming destitute, vassals or enemies. I’m choosing the latter.

Meanwhile, your silence and the silence of all Americans in response to this aggression leaves me disheartened. That silence speaks volumes. I — we — have heard you loud and clear how little our friendship as a country means to you.

Goodbye to the image of America I once held dear — the America of Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley and James Brown, of George Gershwin and Aaron Copeland, of Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain, of Martin Luther King and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Goodbye to what I envied as the country that prided itself on encouraging unparalleled innovation in science, art and business. Any good that remains of it has been overshadowed by rapacity, cheap commercialism and egotism.

Goodbye to that ever-present sense of inferiority I once had when considering the relationship between Canada and America. What doubt I had of our own greatness is gone, and in its place is a certitude that Canada is superior to the U.S. in all the ways that matter. I look across the border now and see a violent, burgeoning autocracy now ever on the edge of civil war, and a population that is either cheering on this new brutalism or quaking in fear from it.

Goodbye to tepid patriotism. If Trump has done us any favour, it is awakening us to the fact that we can no longer take Canada’s existence for granted, that the bad actors in the world have begun to look covetously upon our improbably vast land that is laden with riches, that they want those riches and that niceness as a national character is not enough to dissuade them from taking them. Schoolyard bullies don’t want to be buddies. They want your lunch.

And after a long era of living a geopolitical life of convenient economic and military subservience, we’ve awakened to the fact that we are going to have to relearn our independence and fight any way we can to keep it.

Goodbye to living under the American nuclear umbrella, or any form of American hegemony. Goodbye to negotiation, wheedling, genuflecting or feel-good hands-across-the-border fairy tales. The American government has shown that established alliances mean nothing to it now, and so cannot be trusted. In Trump’s new world order, all the old verities are off the table, so let us make new ones.

Do levy tariffs, as we have promised to do, and do grit our way through the inevitable economic pain that will come. Re-arm as if we were on a war footing, because we are on a war footing. Conduct the mother of all public relation campaigns that let Americans know how badly they are perceived in the world, that they’ve gone from the shining city on the hill to just another empire with the same tired territorial ambitions as Russia or China. Do anything to impress upon Americans that their government is without real friends or allies, and that they, in essence, are alone.

So, goodbye America, it’s been nice knowing you, but I don’t know you anymore. I’ve reached that point in our relationship where any admiration I have had for you has been replaced by a new, angry resolve, which is: I won’t consort with the enemy.

mcmartincharles@gmail.com

Great neighbours

 This morning a pipe burst in the apartment above us. It was quite a mess - water 2 inches deep in our neighbour's kitchen - and then this happened ...

Yep, all that water settled into the space between the floors, then flowed through every opening until the weight of the water brought the ceiling down in our place.

 But this story is not about the mess in our apartment. It's about our neighbours who descended en masse with buckets, who moved furniture and precious items, took pictures, gave helpful advice, brought coffee and lunch, picked up my library book, and made dinner.  

We are so thankful to live in a building with such wonderful people. 

6 minutes of fame

My sister, Robbie, says the world still owes me 9 minutes.

All Points West with Jason D'Souza

Jan. 9, 2025: How the Cancer DriveLine Society helps local cancer patients in need of transportation

Glen Okrainetz, President of Cancer DriveLine Society, and volunteer Gwyn Thompson speaks with All Points West about how their organization serves local cancer patients, and how you can help.

Mum

November and December have been difficult months for our family.  Mum became quite ill in November and was admitted to hospital. It was sad watching her get weaker and more confused. She died peacefully on December 10th.  We are all relieved that she can now rest.  We love her and will miss her dearly.

June Rowley, 1931 - 2024

Anticipation

We had an early dinner tonight.

We laugh!  It reminds us of, "You can't open your Christmas presents until you finish your breakfast" or "No trick or treating until you have some dinner".  In our case, it's "No TV yet".  And what are we watching?  Well, the results of the US Presidential election, of course.

And I have hiccups from eating too fast. 

Postscript: Christmas and Halloween have better surprises.

Six degrees of separation

We had Thanksgiving dinner yesterday at Penny's.  Penny has bravely stepped into the breach and is now hosting the holiday dinners. (Thank you, Penny!)

Together with Penny, Bill, and Sarah were guests Arleen and Chris.  

Penny met Chris when they were both working for the City of Vancouver, and Tom and I met Arleen when we all worked for Family Services of Greater Vancouver, some 40+ years ago, and before Chris and Arleen even knew each other!

Great fun catching up!