On the Road Again 2016 #14

 The motel in Hope was fine - small and certainly not the most luxurious one on the strip - but it was what I needed. I ate at a small restaurant, trying to not wolf down the veggie burger and fries. I am generally not hungry when I am travelling. The occasional granola bar is generally eaten because I am bored as opposed to being actually hungry. But once I have stopped for the day - I am ravenous. I debated having a second beer but I decided that was a bit excessive - I also wondered if it would go to my head. It would not do to fall asleep on the short walk home to my bed.

I was up early the next morning. I made the short walk to the hitchhiking spot just before the highway. It was Saturday and I was hoping for someone who was going to Vancouver either for an event or perhaps shopping. What I got was short ride to Chilliwack and then another ride to Mission. After standing at the entrance ramp for some time I noticed a city bus going by. I like city buses and I assumed that this one would get me to somewhere that would be useful. In fact the driver said that there would be three transfers but that I could get to a Sky Train station. What he didn't tell me was that it would take hours to do so and that there would be three separate bus fares. In hindsight I think I would have been better off standing on the entrance ramp. I am sure that within an hour I could have got a ride into downtown Vancouver and saved myself three bus fares. Next time I will do it differently.

I did eventually get to Vancouver; I did catch the bus to Horseshoe Bay, and in Nanaimo caught the Greyhound bus to Duncan. In Duncan my daughter in-law kindly came and got me. It was not that I could not have walked the kilometre or so home - but I was tired and yes on some days I feel older than I thought I would.

It took me just over two and half days to get from Winnipeg to Duncan. It was a great run. I meet some interesting people  - all of whom had interesting tales to tell. I hope, as always, that I in return for the drive and the company, was able to entertain them with my conversation and my stories. I hope that they felt that it had been a mutually beneficial relationship. These relationships, some very short but a number of them lasting six or seven hours - are why I hitch. I love that excitement of getting into a stranger's car and heading off down the highway. Drivers pick me up for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they are bored; sometimes they are curious about who this person is on the side of the road; sometimes they are paying back the rides they have gotten when they hitchhiked; sometimes they are being charitable; sometimes they have no clear reason - it has been an impulsive stop that I think sometimes they almost regret as I get into the car. But for whatever reason, they do stop - and I am grateful to them all.

Already I am thinking about doing it again - not because I need to go anywhere but because hitchhiking is fun and because hitchhiking defines at least in part, who I am.

P.S. my neighbours, all of who now know that I hitchhiked across part of Canada, are interestingly somewhat blasé about my trip. They have clearly talked to each other about it as I didn't tell them - but they are an accepting lot of people and don't think any less of me because I don't have a fancy car or take planes across the country. It feels good to be home

On the Road Again 2016 #13

 The fact of the matter was that I did not have a clue where I was. I, for some reason, thought that I had somehow managed to missed the chaos of downtown, that there was a previous unknown by-pass of Kelowna that had magically got me to the other end of the city. I was wrong and for the next hour or two I walked along narrow shoulders, across RV showroom's parking lots and other assorted places not made for human feet. It was raining and I was getting splashed by cars and trucks. At the bottom of each little hill, the water pooled into small lakes. It was not a lot of fun. There was a lot of traffic but in many places there was nowhere for them to stop and in other places there was just too much traffic going too fast for drivers to be able to slow down and check me over.

Fortunately I got two  short rides and one longer ride that got me through this mess. The first two rides were mercy rides. Just a short hop to get me a little further down the road - both times almost as soon as I got into the vehicle it poured just a little bit harder, and just before I got out, the rain stopped or at least eased. Someone was certainly looking out for me. The final ride of the threesome that took me through Kelowna was a longer one. my driver went out of his way to get me on the right highway heading towards Hope. It was a very generous gesture that took him out of his way and made my life so much easier. Along the way we had to stop at Wal-Mart as he had to buy a garden gnome.  My driver did not look like someone who would buy such an item. He was in his mid thirties and from our conversation lived a lifestyle verging on the alternative type. The gnome was a bit of a joke that he was giving to a friend. We had an interesting conversation about working in the oil fields (his wife was a welder and had worked up there) and the hypocritical nature of those who, as they drive their cars and use plastic materials throughout their daily lives, criticize those who work in the oil fields.

He let me out a great spot and within 10-15 minutes a car stopped and picked me up. My driver was going to Merritt. He had had been involved in a bank robbery and hostage taking incident a few years previous and understandably had been severely traumatized by the experience. As a consequence, he had been forced to make some life changes. He had just started his own business of making dry stone garden walls. It sounded like an interesting and rewarding job - hard on the back but something that would, I think take great skill.

My next driver was an airline pilot. He was a dad so we spent our time our time talking about being dad. He was also approaching retirement and I, having done it twice was more than glad to talk about that topic too. He was divorced. His girl friend lived (I think ) in Hong Kong. He certainly had lots of choices as to what he would do and where he would live when he was no longer working.

My driver was going on to Richmond. I was tempted to go all the way with him but I was tired. I had not slept in a bed for a few night, the last time I slept had been in the train 48 hours earlier. I had only had a small bowl of soup, a muffin and some granola bars in the past 36 hours. I was still damp from the rain storms and I was physically tired. I did not want to get to downtown Vancouver late in the evening and get stuck there. So I opted to get out at Hope.

On the Road Again 2016 #12

There are a number of great transits systems in Canada, either because of the technology that those systems use, or because the people who work in those systems care about providing a good service. Unfortunately Calgary's transit system seems to fall short in both areas. Winnipeg has those wonderful electronic signs that say when the next bus is coming, Vancouver has, at least in its Skytrain stations, a telephone that connects one to a live person who will tell you exactly which buses to take. In Calgary there is no such help. I spent far too much time walking around the down town core looking for the right bus stop, asking people who were as clueless as I was. When I finally found the bus stop, I had to wait almost 45 minutes for the bus to come. To be fair, there probably are not a lot of people who need to be at the west end of town at 5:30 in the morning. But it would have been nice if I could have talked to someone official who could have helped or at the very least a bus driver who acted as if they cared.

At the west end of Calgary, I am still having a bit of trouble getting off at the right spot and consequently I end up doing a lot more walking than I think I should have to. Calgary has grown so much in the past ten years and I suspect there is a better bus route - I just have not found it.

On the way out of town there is a section of highway that gently but continually rises. It feels as if it goes on forever. On a hot summer day, the road with its black pavement reflecting the heat and hundreds of cars passing every few minutes, it can be tortuous. The shoulders are wide with lots of room for a car to pull over but I never bother to hitch in that area as the traffic is just too chaotic. However at 6:30 or so in the morning, there was less traffic and so every once in a while I would stop, turn around and flash my sign. Generally speaking, this method of intermittent of hitchhiking is not the most efficient use of my time. This time however it was. A new looking, bright red Dodge Challenger switched lanes and pulled up. In all of my years of hitchhiking I had only once before gotten a ride in a sporty looking car. I was excited and then even more excited to find out that my new driver was going to Kelowna. That meant that I would be on the other side of the Rockies by the time I got out of the car. With any luck at all, I could be on the west coast 36 hours after leaving Winnipeg. That would be a new land speed record for me.

It was a great ride. It was delightful car. Very quiet, almost no sense of speed as the suspension was so smooth and my driver was an intelligent driver who had no need to show off how fast it could go. He was young, enthusiastic about life and was both a great conversationalist and a good listener. He worked in the landscaping business. He had just quit working for one boss and had another job lined up next week. He seemed to have great work and business ethics. He had left his previous boss because the guy did not appear to care about customer satisfaction or even doing a good job. It was great to spend time with someone who positive and in control of his life. He was off to spend time with a friend ( I never figured out if she was a girl friend or just a friend who was a girl) - they, along with some other friends, were planning on going camping for a few days. It seemed to me to be a long drive but I was not complaining.

When rides appear as fast as they did on this particular run across Canada, I have less time to think about the drivers and who and what they were. When I have an hour or two (or three) hours between rides, I get to think about the conversations and file those remembrances in my longer term memory. I had had such good luck this time that the rides were starting to run together. The conversations were starting to feel all the same. And that is truly too bad as all of my drivers this year had been interesting and generous men.

At some point in our conversations we were talking about different towns along our route. I had mentioned that I liked Revelstoke, When we started to get close to that town my driver said he needed to stop for something to eat. I do not like stopping. I just want to, especially when I am not driving, to go and go and go. I am always reluctant to get out of the car in perhaps some barely hidden fear that the car will somehow disappear if I leave it. But we did stop, found an absolutely wonderful little cafe that felt like a place the locals went to for a chat. In spite of the fact that it was well before noon, we both had a bowl of soup. It may have been the best homemade soup I have ever had. We ate fairly quickly all-the-while making observations on the town and the other customers. Revelstoke has long been my favourite town in the Rockies. In spite of being in the middle of a winter playground, it has maintained its small town atmosphere. There is no sense that this atmosphere is forced or manufactured. It just is.

The car had not disappeared from the parking lot and in short order we were once again on our way. It was raining a little bit in Revelstoke and then rain continued in dribs and drabs for the rest of our trip. Kelowna is not my favourite town as an end destination. Two highways merge in Kelowna and the only way to get through that town is to go through it. There is no by-pass. traffic is slow and frustrating.  As a hitchhiker I feel powerless. I know at some point that I am going to get stuck.

I was right. My driver was turning off of the highway and I needed to get out. I thought I knew where I was and where I had to get to....I was wrong.

Divide and Conquer

 In reading my morning news feeds, two stories - thousands of miles apart - struck me as being similar if only because they reflect that age old capitalist strategy of divide and conquer.

CBC reported on a twitter post from Qasim Rashid, a visiting fellow at Harvard University's School of Islamic Studies, wondering why "red blood from brown skin" is less newsworthy/less worthy of international condemnation and sorrow than when terrorist attacks occur in the western world. He, and others who have responded to his tweet accurately note that when there are mass deaths in France or in Florida, there is a public outpouring of grief and sympathy and rage. Social media sites such as Facebook create ways for people to easily express their solidarity with the those who have been terrorized.  Conversely, when there are similar or even worse terror attacks in Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh there are neither the public expressions of anger or grief, nor does Facebook make any attempt to facilitate world wide outrage.

While there may be many reasons why there is such a disparity in how those of us who live in privileged countries chose what to be angry at and how we express our anger, it is clear that we are less connected (and affected) by those deaths that occur not only half a world away but as well to people with whom we have no cultural affiliation. It is clearly easier to feel less connected to people who appear to be different from "us'.

The second story that I have been following for the past few days has been the Toronto Gay Pride parade on Saturday. At some point during that parade, the Toronto branch of Black Lives Matter, had a "sit-in" and stopped the parade until the organizers of that parade agreed in writing to a number of changes to the policies of that organization, its employment practices and who would be allowed to participate in next year's parade. It was an interesting strategy. Similarly as to when left wing political organizations need to deal with their own employee unions, the Pride organizers had no expertise in dealing with people who were prepared to be more radical than them. The Pride organizers were forced to concede to all of  Black Lives Matter's demands.

There is no doubt that some of the issues were valid. It has long been the history of social movements, that they have initially focused on the needs of the middle class. For example, the Women's Suffragette movement from the turn of the last century was led by, and demanded rights for only a certain class of women. It is only relatively recently that the Women's movement has started to articulate the needs of women from visible minorities or immigrants or those who are poor. Social movements almost by definition are run by those who can afford the time and the risk to protest. It is not surprising that Black Canadians who are part of the LGBTQ community have felt ignored or unsupported by some of their seemingly less marginalized their fellow members.

I think the unifying bit between these two stories is the fact that there is some suggestion that some people's pain and suffering is worth more or less than others. That it somehow seems to be part of the human condition that we need to quantify our personal hurt and to compare it to others'. The members of Black Lives Matter were not saying that the white LGBTQ community had not been discriminated against, but rather that the black LGBTQ has had it worse;  Qasim Rashid was not suggesting that the western outrage at the events at Orlando or in Paris was inappropriate, but rather that we should at least feel equally as outraged at the terrorist attacks in Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh. In fact because far more people have died in those countries we should be even more concerned/upset/outraged.

 A few weeks ago I did a blog that mentioned Ismael Beah's book A long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and his comments that sadness or anguish or any other emotion is relative. One sorrow is not greater or more important than another. Similarly oppression is oppression. Somehow we need as a society of people who believe in justice for all, to stop comparing people's pain or frustrations to see if they are worthy of public support. Somehow we need, while giving validity to the issues that were raised by Black Lives Matter, to recognize that other members of the LGBTQ community have also been affected by harassment, discrimination and a legitimate fear of being hurt or killed by bigots. We all need to work together to ensure that those issues stop being a reality for so many individuals in that community. The only people that are served by such discord are those who would deny any rights to the LGBTQ community.

We need to become equally as outraged when people die in Bangladesh as when people die in Paris. There is no reason, except for our own biases, to ignore lives being taken by terrorist, just because that person's skin is not white. The pain that death in Bangladesh causes for the person's family and friends is just as real as when it happens in Paris. For us to accept anything else only confirms the terrorists' statements that the west does not care.

In the ongoing class struggle for equality, we need to find ways of unifying not separating. Accepting the validity of others' pain, sorrow and anger and then joining them in their outrage might be a good place to start.

On the Road Again 2016 # 11

When I sit back and reflect, now almost three weeks since my brief hitchhiking trip, I still marvel how far one person can travel in a day if the hitchhiking Gods are kind. As I got into what would be my last ride of the day, my new driver said that he was going all the way to Calgary and I was excited. I knew I would be getting into that city very late, and at the back of my mind was the slight worry about where I was going to sleep. But sleeping was six or seven hours away and I was ready for another ride where my primary function was to keep my driver awake.

My driver was driving a large pick-up truck. While at other times,  some drivers makes an attempt to clear of a seat for my pack, there was far too much stuff this time so I threw my pack in the back, hoping that I would be able to fish it out when the ride was finished. In some of the newer trucks with the slightly over sized tires it is a long reach down into the bed to grab the pack. As I age and lose a bit of flexibility, it is getting more and more difficult for me to get the pack out. Normally if I have a choice, I prefer to have the pack in the vehicle where I can see it. I am not afraid of the pack flying out of the truck, nor was I afraid of any rain - I just like to be able to see my pack.

My driver was from Transylvania. It was really hard to resist all of the silly vampire jokes that flitted into my mind. However the only time we talked at all about that country was when I asked what language they spoke (answer was Romanian).

It was a quiet conversation, with short spells of nothing being said. Those intermissions were not because we had disagreed or because there was nothing left to talk about, they were just quiet times of relaxing and enjoying the drive. Unlike my first drive of the trip, we made no attempt to discuss how to change the world or even to find a bridge between our two different cultures. At the end of the trip, neither of us knew that much more about each either than when we started out together. We talked about the usual things that strangers do, but for some reason we never got much past that. Maybe it was because it had already been a long day for me, or that I was not as skilled/pushy at prying as at other times- but our conversation while enjoyable and it certainly filled the six or seven hours we spent together - was superficial.

We got into Calgary about 3:00 in the morning. What does one do at 3:00 AM in any city? We had talked about it a few times and I had discussed my various options - sleeping outside, getting a motel, finding a hostel - but all of the choices seemed like more work than I wanted to do. All of the choices would have delayed the next day's start. I asked my driver to drop me off at a 24 hour Tim Horton's. He thought he knew where there was a 24 hour McDonald's that was right near a C train station.  The plan evolved without me doing any thinking or planning. I would spend an hour or so at McDonald's, use the bathroom, buy some tea and then get on the train that hopefully would connect me to the bus heading out towards the Calgary Olympic Park. From there I would start on the last leg of my trip to the Pacific Ocean.

The weather in Calgary  was a lot colder than it had been in Regina just half a day before. It was cold enough that I put on my fleece and just wet enough to put on my rain jacket. Across the street from the McDonald's there was some major construction occurring - the workers being in a rush to complete the night's work before rush hour started. Using the restaurant were a number of the road crew, a bored police officer who had spent the night in her car, with the lights flashing, making sure that drivers in the area were aware that there were some big trucks etc on the road, and a couple of young people who appeared to have spent at least part of the night there. I didn't feel out of place or unwanted. In fact no one paid me any attention.

I did speak to one gentleman who knew the area well. He both confirmed where the C train station was and wished me good luck.

At 4:30 I walked to the nearest station, spent 10 minutes reading the map to figure out which train to take and half an hour later I was in downtown Calgary.