Help Me Make It Through the Night---The backstory

HERE IS THE BACKSTORY TO THE SONG

With pen and paper in hand, Kris, anguished and tormented, head down and teary eyed, entered the tavern and sat down in a dark remote corner and ordered a double. He needed something to relieve his pain.

Hours earlier, a sympathetic and kindly Salvation Army Officer who was hoping to negotiate the beginning of a reconciliation had driven him up to the house of his long estranged wife.

Obviously, Kris had confided his pain to the Officer.

The uniformed Officer approached the door of the house while Kris waited hopefully in the car for a face-to-face meeting with his wife whom he had not seen for many years.

His wife angrily rejected any thought of reconciliation. And who could blame her?

By 20, she had mothered three of Kris’s four children. Despite this, Kris spent most of his wages virtually every night having a good time in the pub and coming home most evenings only after last call. Once home, usually in a drunken state, if indeed he did come home at all, he would beat his wife, often for rejecting his advances.

She was the classic abused wife and her beatings would earn Kris jail time these days. Unfortunately, spousal abuse was not treated seriously in those days of sexual inequality. Then, man ruled the roost as king of his castle.

Until recent times, divorce was uncommon and difficult. The only ground for divorce was infidelity, and embarrassment at that becoming public in the Victorian 40’s and 50’s deterred divorce for many on those grounds. The other ground for a legal end to a marriage was the death of a spouse. In the absence of evidence of death, this ruling was made following seven years of separation during which time the spouse could not be located. But Kris kept surfacing just before the seven years, each time denying his wife’s freedom.

After the birth of her fourth child at 24, Kris’s wife escaped the abuse by running away with her newborn son to work somewhere...anywhere, as a domestic. Painfully, she had to leave her other three children who came under the care of the Children’s Aid.

All this gnawed at Kris’s tormented mind as he cleared his tears and started to write.

“Dear Rose....”

Kris was spent and broken and words didn’t come easily. He found it difficult to express his remorse for the hell he’d brought his family.

“I think of you constantly,” he wrote. “I’ve brought only pain to you and our children. I regret this with all my heart. But yesterday is left and gone. It can’t be changed. But, I promise, I won’t let the devil take any tomorrows if we can share some time together. It’s so sad to be alone," he added in self pity.

Thinking of his shameful past was painful. He put his pen and paper aside and bowed his head to hide the tears again welling in his eyes. Kris’ emotions overcame him making it impossible to continue.

Shortly, a stranger, a busty scantily dressed woman with her hair tied up with a bright red ribbon approached his table.

“You’re all alone,” she said. “You look like you need some company.”

“Sure, sit down. Let me get you a drink,” Kris replied.

They drank until the place closed and then left arm in arm...together.

WRITER'S NOTE---This story is mostly factual with Kris portraying the character of my father and his estrangled wife my mother.  It is doubtful though that my father ever displayed any of Kris' remorse or tears until his end as a broken, lonely, and forgotten soul.

In Flander's Fields---A Recitation

This is a famous war memorial poem written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918),a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres.

The poppies mentioned in the poem are now a familiar emblem of remembrance day (Canada) and Armistice Day (USA) that is celebrated annually in ceremonies remembering the war dead at 11 am every November 11 signalling the signing of the armistice to end WWI at 11 on that day in 1918.

The red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields".

These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour an appropriate symbol for the blood spilled in the war.

I enjoy reciting this sombre poem to myself every November 11 as my personal act of remembrance.

You Couldn’t Dream Up A Comedy Like This ©

Bill Longworth
November 2, 2011

Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the three stooges, Curly, Larry, and Moe, and even Laurel and Hardy were never this good!

It was an impromptu slapstick comedy act. Bicyclists peddling down the street knee deep in water with tons of floating garbage catching their spokes, seizing their wheels, and tumbling countless riders into the rushing water.

Too bad there weren’t judges around to hold up cards judging the dives...5.6, 6.0, 5.8, to make a real competition out of the pratfalls....and audiences to cheer the level of their approval. Instead there were only howls of laughter and derision at those unfortunate victims of the situation.

The speed of some of the bigger and heavier chunks of garbage rushing down the road collided with the bicycles crashing their riders into the flood.

In the face of colliding with the bigger debris, some nimble riders jumped off their bikes and took off as best they could into the drink to escape the bombardment.

You couldn’t plan such a comedy routine as rider after rider fell victim to the garbage strewn water.

Slapstick was never as good as this!

If I didn’t think I was in such a desperate predicament, I would have joined all of the other onlookers laughing their heads off at the ridiculous and bizarre buffoonery we were witnessing in the rapidly rising water.

With a few spare hours to kill, I had ventured out into a sunny China afternoon for a bike ride to a nearby rural neighbourhood when an unexpected rainstorm suddenly arose. Rapidly drenched, I quickly pulled my bike up under a canopy to avoid getting more soaked than I already was.

Without storm water control systems, the water rushed overland and was soon a torrential river roaring down the road that only a few minutes earlier had been a dusty broken road between the open-fronted shops lining the road.

The rain water flooded the street as I watched helplessly from higher ground wondering if I could get back to Kunming’s Yunnan Finance and Trade Institute in SW China to deliver my 7 o’clock lecture.

I shivered in my wet clothes as the river flooded higher and higher as I perched precariously atop the biggest boulder I could find. If I lost my footing or the water rose much higher, its strong current surely would have floated me downstream in the torrent, along with the many other comedic river rats and garbage.

Such a spectacle would probably have been the highlight of the show as most ordinary Chinese saw all white North American big noses like me as wealthy, coming as we did, from a place where all the streets were paved in gold. So being swept away in the current and garbage would be a just comeuppance for me.

While this flooding was a surprise and a fright to me as the water continued to rise, the native inhabitants of the place had obviously seen this before and saw humour where I saw danger, and they saw a cleansing of their neighbourhood where I saw pollution.

The eighteen inch water became a flushing system for all of the garbage and dirt of the community. To add to the mayhem, shopkeepers threw all of their garbage into the rushing water so that the flood become a sea of flotsam rushing downhill to Lord knows where. While the garbage was sure to end up as someone’s problem down the line, it was a welcome saviour for those on higher ground to get rid of litter that had probably been piling up since the last storm. Eco concerns were the last thing on anyone’s mind.

While this demonstration of a natural flushing system was probably a godsend to the upstream people, it brought considerable anguish to me with my concern with world pollution problems...such a contrast to this culture where garbage is simply strewn about.

This event, though, did provide reinforcement of lessons I have learned numerous times in my international work experience. And that is to not judge customs in foreign lands by my North American standards, which may be equally perplexing to them.

But my experience with this flash flood has given me greater appreciation of the power of nature and the catastrophe’s that can erupt so quickly catching all by surprise who are in its wake....and often with disastrous results.

And by the way, I never did get to that lecture.

My Foray Into The World of Crime ©

By Bill Longworth
October 19, 2011

We pulled up to the five star Fairmont Towers Hotel near the Cairo Airport and I slipped out of my chauffeur driven car with my backpack of money and ventured into the front passenger seat of an impeccably polished black Mercedes.

I didn’t know where I was going or who I was with, but the Mercedes driver had given my chauffeur a promise to convert my bag of Egyptian cash into real money in the form of American greenbacks.

I was returning to Canada after finishing my job assignment as Director of a “start up” International High School that paid me about as much as fifty Egyptian teachers and, despite living high off the hog, I had accumulated a healthy sum.

I had no idea how much Egyptian money I had in my bag...but it might well have been the equivalent of $15,000-$20,000US, and I knew that, if unconverted, it only had the value of last week’s newspaper once outside the country.

In retrospect, It’s frightening to contemplate the risks you’ll take when there’s money on the line.

Egypt has tightly regulated foreign exchange controls as the government attempts to lock up all internationally recognized currencies for its own use and for the use of its privileged insiders. Thus my money conversion was illegal and had to be done on the black market.

And neither my driver, nor the Mercedes driver, spoke much English so I had no idea of the specifics of the agreements or discussions they had.

I did know that my safety and security, and that of my bag of money, was in the hands of those I didn’t know and couldn’t communicate with. I was proceeding on blind faith....and a hope and a prayer.

Before hopping into the Mercedes, I had my driver write down the car’s license number, get the driver’s identification, and instructed him to wait until I returned. As if any of this would provide me security!

The Mercedes driver, a heavy-set guy with an olive Arabic complexion, was neatly dressed. His slick-backed hair and “hustler” manner distinguished him as not of the executive set. It appeared to me that his Mercedes was probably the result of criminal activity in this country where the best middle class salaries averaged $240US monthly---certainly not enough to afford these wheels.

As part of the criminal element, I wondered whether the guy was holstering a revolver under his jacket. I knew weapons were common to the Egyptian population. I once witnessed a guy sitting in broad daylight on the curb outside his residence cleaning his revolver.

And everywhere you look in Egypt, bus loads of heavily armed soldiers and police were waiting for immediate dispatch to trouble spots. Unfortunately none of these trouble-shooters were nearby. The only sense of security I got was from the hotel security guards, and who knows, they may have been in cahoots with the Mercedes driver hanging around the hotel parking lot. So it was not just my wild imagination wondering whether this stranger helping me break the law was packing some heat that might be used to do me in and steal my cash.

And I’d often heard rumours in Egypt about the proclivity of police and others to shoot first and ask questions later....a belief reinforced daily as my driver drove through heavily armed police check-points on my return from work, although we didn’t have to stop, perhaps because my car was somehow identified as “safe.”

It’s frightening how the need for practical action often causes you to throw caution to the wind...and this risky, foolhardy, and maybe even dumb-headed money exchange adventure seemed eerily similar to a perilous game of Russian roulette.

But to me, the amount of cash I had was no chicken feed, and I needed to convert it into something of value. Previous unsuccessful attempts to get the cash changed to American currency, had me shopping for Rolex watches as a last resort, but there was no guarantee even these would be real.

Anyway, despite my trepidations, I was in the Mercedes and it sped off through the streets to some unknown destination. After forty minutes or so through a section of Cairo that looked a little seedy to me, the car pulled up in a run-down high-rise apartment complex.

The driver handed me the keys to his Mercedes and gestured for my bag of money and we made the exchange.

He got out of the car and made his way to some unknown “out of sight” destination.

After what seemed like an eternity, he returned and gave me a sheaf of brand new American hundreds and I returned his keys.

Now that I had the real money and he had his keys, was he now going to drive me to some remote location to do me in and reclaim the money?

That question dominated my thinking until I saw the hotel and my chauffeur still there waiting for me. It was only then that I felt relief knowing that the transaction was complete, and I was safe.

I never even bothered counting the cash I got and didn’t care about the huge premium I probably paid, but I did applaud my alchemy at being able to convert my trash to gold.

And, oh yes, I did slip my chauffeur a few hundred for his collusion in this caper knowing that, if he was caught, it may well have resulted in jail time for him.

Now I feel better! This confession has cleansed my soul and absolved my sin! Hey! That’s so easy! Now, what other mischief can I get myself into?

It Helps to Have...a Beautiful Woman On Your Arm ©

By Bill Longworth
October 5, 2011

As I sat in London’s Lyceum theatre with the beautiful young oriental woman I was with that Saturday night, minding my own business as usual, a stodgy old man sitting alone next to me started up a “small talk” conversation.

“Where you from?” he inquired.

Unimpressed, I looked at the guy not really interested in conversing with him. He was a little overweight and had just a smidgeon of white hair haloing his head. He was dressed in an unpressed brown suit, looked every day his age of at least 80, and, as if for some kind of security, he incessantly fondled a tattered well-worn “leather bound” novel. The little bit of hair he had was pulled back eccentrically into a three inch ponytail at the back of his head.

“Toronto,” I responded in a civil, if not so respectful tone, “And you?”

“Chicago,” he said, “But I spend about half the year here staying at the Reform Club.”

If I’d known then what I know now about the Reform Club, I’d suspect he was trying to impress me, or more probably, the Lady I was with that evening.

“I’m Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. Name's E. Blythe Statton Jr.,* he said, “But you can call me Blythe.”

“I’m Bill,” I said rather apologetically, realizing my “handle” was not nearly as impressive as his, but I suppose I could have jazzed it up a bit by identifying myself as William Longworth, the third.

“And the lady....what’s her name?” he continued, rather aggressively I thought, showing considerable interest in my companion so early in the conversation.

“She’s Helen and she came with me from Canada,” I responded, hoping this answer would give him the message that she was not only with me tonight but that she was also my travel mate.

At this the lecherous old man, after clearly establishing his credentials with both of us, leaned over me and started conversing more directly with Helen.

“I spend a lot of time in London,” he said, “And perhaps I could show you and Bill around the town. Dinner perhaps at the Reform Club Monday evening, as there’s a James Bond film shoot there tomorrow.”

Amazing a total stranger should offer us a dinner in what sounded like such an exclusive place...or perhaps he was arranging a date with Helen and I was merely the “third wheel” tag-along guest.

Anyway, after the theatre, we walked Blythe westward along the Strand towards Pall Mall where the Reform Club was located. We had to part company though at the Charing Cross Tube Station and head south across the Thames on the Hungerford Footbridge to the Waterloo Train station for the 40 minute train ride west to Staines, the London suburb where we lived.

Before splitting, though, we made sure to confirm our plans for the Reform Club dinner. As part of the details, Blythe cautioned me to wear a suit and tie and leather shoes, which also informed Helen of the standard of dinner dress expected of women guests.

The twenty minute walk with Blythe was interesting. He said he had a Rolls Royce in England and another in Chicago. “Women loved riding in them,” he stated, again I guessed for Helen’s enticement.

I was starting to think that Blythe, (despite his appearance, but being impressed with his two Rolls Royces), might be a quite a wealthy guy. I also became impressed with his intelligence when he said he was a Harvard Law Graduate. I wasn’t nearly as impressed when he said his great grandfather invented the elevator brake, which he demonstrated in the Crystal Palace Exposition Hall at the 1854 New York World’s Fair.

I made sure though, before the dinner, to research the Reform Club and the inventor of the elevator brake.

The Reform Club is one of five or six super exclusive by-invitation-only “Gentlemen’s Clubs” on Pall Mall, whose guests are mostly Lords and Ladies, and his great grandfather, the inventor of the elevator brake, was Elisha Graves Otis whose two sons, one Blythe’s grandfather, founded Otis Elevators and installed the world’s first public elevator in a five story Manhattan Department store. The rest, of course, is world class industrial and commercial history.

And the best part, Blythe still writes me from all over the world on his travels and when he visited me in Oshawa two years ago, he commented on how he enjoyed discussing things with me as he said there was so much to learn.

And this from a guy I considered the smartest guy I’d ever met.

I‘ll have to visit him in Chicago to see his whole collection of Rolls Royces and Bentleys going back to the early 1900s, some he said would cost millions of dollars to restore.

And, oh yes, I do credit Blythe’s interest in Helen for being the magnet for my continuing association with Blythe.

And I’ve learned beyond a doubt, It never hurts to have beautiful woman on your arm.


*Blythe’s surname, whose mother was one of the daughters of the founder of Otis Elevator Company, has been changed to protect his identity

The Frightful Tomb ©

Bill Longworth
September 28, 2011

I clambered up the steep and irregular boulder steps to the entrance high above the desert floor, for 40 centuries, the tallest structure on Earth.

I entered through the Robber’s Tunnel, a hole poked into the side of the massive structure by Persian Invaders around AD820. At that time, the main entrance was located higher up and off centre to dissuade looters, and was concealed behind slabs of polished stone covering the entire edifice.

Expending such a huge effort to rob the place, those early plunderers were sure to have left few treasures for me.



Entering this structure was not for the faint of heart. The limit of 300 daring souls admitted daily was seldom threatened, as most people refused to enter this foreboding place.

Posted signs warned of steep climbs, dark, damp, and narrow passageways, and low ceilings often requiring crawling on hands and knees. It was not at all the place for the claustrophobic, the faint of heart, or the out of shape.

But I saw entry as an opportunity of a lifetime as I enthusiastically made my way to the entrance. The reluctance of most to enter made me even more eager to explore this mysterious place.

The place? The Great Pyramid of Egypt. At 4000 years old, it is the only remaining structure of the original Seven Wonders of the World, and I was about to probe into the bowels of this place where so few humans over those 4000 years had ever been.

The inside is a honeycomb of dark mysterious stone passageways punctuated by steep climbs on inclined ramps and steep staircases and ladders. Some of the narrow passageways have been blocked by massive boulders designed to keep out intruders, or indeed, to keep those lost from escape. If lost, what a fate to be entombed and rot in this sweltering place.

Inside, every word and footstep echoes eerily, ghostlike off the solid stone walls, almost as if those from millenniums past are stalking your every step. Every whisper is amplified a thousand times by the massive stone walls comprised of millions of precision “hand cut” locomotive sized stone blocks pieced together so finely as to defy those who would want to slip an onionskin in the joints.

When you stop to listen, you are deafened by the menacing silence of the place. It seems the spirit of the ancient pharaoh entombed here, and his servants, and the workers sacrificed during construction, remain vigilant custodians tracking every movement of those who would enter this sacred place. When you stop to listen, they also silence their sounds so as to remain hidden from your view.

The trapped perspiration off every sweating visitor and the moisture exhaled through their breathing, and often exhumed as a result of their anxiety, adds to the 85% humidity to bathe each subsequent visitor with the vaporous discards of visitors past.

This build-up of humidity, in addition to being a severe discomfort for those brave enough to enter this tomb, is a giant concern to curators and conservators charged with protecting the treasure. Hence the daily limitation on visitors and recent closures for the installation of modern dehumidifier systems.

And to think this marvel of human ingenuity, unmatched even today, was built 4000 years ago with hand labour, primitive engineering, planning and complex design communicated orally or in ancient hieroglyphics written on papyri or clay tablets in the beginning stages of written language, complicated math and astronomical computations without the use of modern computing tools....a structure virtually impossible to duplicate today even in our advanced computerized and mechanized society.

It’s doubtful that any wonders of modern-day engineering will be around 4000 years into the future.

Who says we’ve come a long way in the last 4000 years in what humans have been able to accomplish.

We think of those ancient civilizations as primitive, but no person living today would be able to duplicate the mental and physical skills of the pyramid builders of that pre-biblical Egyptian society.

INTERESTING LINKS

How were the stones moved?---no one knows!

The Torment of the Educated Cabbie ©

Bill Longworth
Sept 21, 2011


“Good afternoon sir. Please get in,” said the well mannered and well dressed cabbie in impeccable English. This greeting was extraordinary for taxi drivers in Cairo where I was employed. Most were illiterate. Very few could read or write Arabic, never mind speak English.

This guy smelled of pleasant cologne which was characteristic of higher class Egyptian men who always kept a bottle of spray nearby to combat the effects of the blistering temperatures, and he was clean cut and freshly shaven---not at all your typical Cairo cabbie.

Amazingly, I had no problem at all communicating with this guy.

Usually communication was dependent upon simple gestures or the names of a few key locations I had learned to pronounce. For safety’s sake, my business card had an Arabic labeled map with my residence identified on the back. At the outset, I would hand this to the driver and most would hop out of the cab to get it read by an educated bystander.

As time passed, and I learned the way to my favourite Cairo destinations, I was able to direct drivers by gesture.

While I welcomed the invitation to get into this cab and out of the blistering 100 degree heat on this hot September day, I ‘d never get into a cab before negotiating a price for a ride to my destination.

Throughout the Middle East, there are few fixed prices and everything is open to negotiation. To an outsider, the bargaining looks and sounds like an agitated quarrel soon to get violent.

So waving a banknote in the air, “I’m going to the Khan el Khalili market,” I said to the English speaking cabbie, “and I’ll give you ten Egyptian pounds for the ride.” This was the standard price I’d pay, about a dollar and a half Canadian, to anywhere in downtown Cairo from my residence in Heliopolis, a well-to-do suburb characterized by distinctive Turkish architecture.

“Okay, it’s a deal,” said the cabbie as he reached over to open the cab door.

The cab took off and we shortly swung past Hosni Mubarak’s Presidential Compound, a Heliopolis landmark not far from my residence that I was chauffeured past on my way to work every day of the week.

Some cabbies were reluctant to accept a ten pound offer from a foreigner and would drive off in a huff making gestures that I took to mean that they thought I was crazy. Such gestures are used frequently in negotiating prices and were tools I quickly picked up in perfecting my own bargaining skills for use in Egypt. Of course, unless you were nuts, you wouldn’t think of using such tactics in Canada.

One may think fare negotiations disrespectful and impolite, but it is a way of life in the Middle East. There are no firm prices. Every seller argues for more and every buyer argues for less. Buying anything is a game of wits and you’d lose your shirt in an instant if you failed to follow this custom. What most people lack in education, they more than make up in street smarts, guile, and cunning. From an early age, mostly spent as street kids, they all learn how to close the deal!

This Cabbie’s enthusiasm in accepting my ten pound offer without the usual bickering raised questions in my mind. Why did he want me in the cab so much? Why not the usual negotiations? Why is he so different from the typical cabbie? Is there something strange going on here? Should I be concerned about my security and safety? You never know about these things in a strange country where you don’t know the lay of the land.

Price negotiation was common for everyone getting a cab in Cairo as was a cabbie’s common refusal to provide the service. While negotiations with one cab driver were ensuing, it was common for two or three cabs to join the cab lineup hoping for the job. This lineup of cabs I thought was part of the negotiation game as each cab was hoping that my frustration with a refused offer would boost up my price for the next driver. All cabbies, it seemed, were in collusion to steal foreigners blind.

Anyway, once the cab set off, it wasn’t long before conversation ensued. “Where are you from?...and…What do you do?” inquired the cabbie.

"I’m from Canada and I’m Director of a Private High School preparing students to write the SAT examinations for entrance to Professional Schools in American Universities," I responded.

He would have known immediately that the students in the school were from extremely privileged families…and destined for the highest imaginable riches.

At that, the reason for the cab driver’s lack of bargaining in getting me into his cab became obvious.

"I’m trained as a lawyer," he said. "And I wonder if you’d have any influence in getting me a good job here in Egypt."

"Amazing," I thought! "He’s wondering whether a foreigner has influence in getting him a good job in his own country!"

This brought into sharp focus judgments I’d already made in observation of the students graduating from the school I administered. At the convocation ceremony, the majority of graduates were off to medical school.

Family influence and privilege are the birthrights for wealth and success in Egypt. Hard work, education, and intelligence are not the keys. Your life journey is determined at birth.

The rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer and nothing is able to break the cycle.

And that, in a nutshell folks, is the stark reason for the recent Egyptian revolution and the strife now flooding the Middle East.

And that revolution would be strongly supported by the tormented cabdriver and resisted strongly by the families of every student in my school.

Frighteningly, as in Egypt, growing income disparity in North America could lead to the same kind of strife.



More Reading on this topic as it relates to Canada and the USA

Growth of income inequality in Canada

Why Occupy? It's the Inequality

Kevin O'Leary gets a smackdown over corporate greed from Journalist Chris Hedges

Occupy Bay Street---Maclean's Mag

Occupy Toronto...the G20 and now Bay Street

New York Minute: Observations and Aims in Occupy Wall Street

Mic Check....Despatches from the Occupy Wall Street

An Activist's Guide to Occupy Toronto

Objectives of the Occupy Toronto Movement

Chris Hedges smacks down CBC/s Kevin O'Leary attacking protest movement

Why should Canadians care about the "Occupy" movement?

NYTIMES--opinion piece---Why the "Occupy Movement" frightens the rich

A Little Tension in the Air ©

By Bill Longworth
February 18, 2008


“I think we need a GPS for the boat,” I said to my wife as we pulled up to the government dock to unload the car and pack the boat for the eight-mile boat ride to our secluded cottage.

“Just another expensive toy,” she responded. “There are lots of better ways to spend our money.”



“It’d be great to help us across the lake tonight,” I stated, as I surveyed the dark fall sky and the brisk wind which churned up unusually heavy waves. “Usually the light from the moon and stars is enough for me to see the sillouette of the tree line to navigate the way, but tonight it’s impossible to see anything.”

This was a night-time trip I had made hundreds of times. My strategy was always the same. Turn off all the boat lights for better night vision, and drive standing up with my head through the roof hatch to catch my bearings. I always felt, though, that traversing the lake at night was like going through the vast expanses of outer space, as the lake is large and boat traffic is minimal even in daylight hours. In any case, I always figured I would hear the noise of any boats in the vicinity and would simply turn on the navigation lights so our boat could be seen.

“That's a cold wind,” observed my wife as she helped to load the boat. “The sky is black as coal. The only colour I see are the whitecaps of those breaking waves. Perhaps we should stay in town and go over in the morning.”

Despite our second thoughts, we decided to embark on the trip across the lake, figuring we’d be there in a short time and could settle in comfortably for the night.

I always keep enough gas in the tank to get me safely across the lake as you’d never want to run out of gas, especially at night. The large, heavy boat is impossible to move anywhere with the safety paddles I always stowed in the boat. Moving the boat was difficult in still water, but nigh on impossible with any kind of wind, and this night the wind and waves were both quite angry. Perhaps they were angry at me for venturing out when mother-nature was so venomous.

While my gas tank was a little lower than normal on this night, I was confident I had plenty of gas for the trip.

Land is usually quite close for most of the trip but there is a large expanse of open water a mile or so across that has to be crossed. The north wind in this section of the lake has a sweep of about twelve miles to kick up the waves. And this night, the waves were peaking wildly. About a quarter of the way across this open water, I figured I had better slow down a bit for safety’s sake and the emotional comfort of my family, who were huddled under the roof not having any idea where we were in the trip, but, of course, having the usual confidence in my ability to get us to the cottage safely.

I ducked my head under the roof to reach for the control to slow us down a bit and for that brief moment took my eyes off my bearings. As soon as I ducked under the roof, a giant wave struck the boat portside, knocking the bow to the right and changing our direction. I searched the horizon as best I could for the right direction and confidently headed off again.

I eventually found the narrow channel that I had to navigate and headed straight for it. As I entered the channel, it funnelled narrower and narrower, and didn’t at all look like the wide channel I should be in. As I gingerly turned the boat around, hoping that I was not going to run aground or hit submerged logs or rocks, I noticed that my gas gauge was reading dangerously low…and I didn’t know where I was.

Scanning the horizon, I did see a light in the distance, and so I headed for it, figuring that someone there could identify my location. As I approached the light, I recognized that it was the marina and knew then exactly where I was…and where I had been. Good thing I turned around, I thought. We would have bottomed out had we gone much further. The wrong course, though, did burn some precious fuel and the marina was closed. Despite the precarious fuel situation, I still figured that we had enough gas barring any further mishap.

Knowing our location, I once again took my bearings and headed out into the black again, making sure that I didn’t duck down again to lose sight of where I wanted to go. Much to my relief, we finally did get to the cottage, and even to this moment, I am the only one to know of our limited gas supply that night. I saved the stress of this problem all to myself, but Lord knows what would have happened had we run out of gas.

On our arrival at the cottage, my wife, sensing the difficult situation we had been in, suggested we needed that GPS.

“But they are a lot of money,” I replied, silently thinking, “All’s well that ends well,” but strongly censuring myself for our gas shortage while making a mental note to ensure it never happened again.

And, oh yes, I did buy that GPS!

The Saga of the Flippin' Flue ©

www.storytellerbill.comBy Bill Longworth
April 29, 2009


Over 10 ½ inches of snow had fallen on January 3, 1943, one of the worst snowstorms in Toronto’s history, and most of this was still blocking the roads on that blustery Sunday night of Jan. 17, when a determined 21 year old woman in her nightclothes crawled groggily on hands and knees through the deep snow up the drifted dark laneway beside 1568 Kingston Road in Scarborough.

The frigid night air and the cold deep snow undoubtedly helped to partially clear the fog out her head, but obviously she was in deep distress.

On reaching the front of the lane, she struggled to stand, but fell unconscious against the front door of the house, attracting the attention of those inside.



The door opened, and the startled woman was confronted by the collapsed bare-footed female body in nightclothes with her face mostly buried in the deep snow. Turning her over, she recognized the unconscious woman as her neighbor Dorothy, who lived in the rented quarters down the lane at the rear of the house.

“Dorothy! Dorothy!” she screamed. “What’s the matter?” Over and over, the woman called, “Dorothy! Dorothy! Dorothy! Wake up!”

Dorothy seemed completely oblivious to her surroundings and only groaned inaudible utterances in response. The woman pulled Dorothy inside and began shaking and slapping her to try to restore her consciousness.

After what seemed an eternity, she heard Dorothy mumble, “It’s my children. My three children. They’re all inside the house.”

Not fully comprehending the problem, but sensing the seriousness of it anyway, the women’s husband rushed down the lane and forced his way into the smoke-filled rooms. He felt his way around and found the children sleeping soundly, indeed too soundly, completely unaware of the emergency around them. He quickly carried each of them outside, laying them gently on the snowy mattress of the lane. Once he had accounted for all three, he carried them, two-year-old twin boys and a one-year-old baby girl, to the warm comfort of his quarters, where his wife had already alerted the police and fire department.

It wasn’t long before the emergency help arrived and oxygen resuscitators revived Dorothy and her children. Meanwhile, firemen went back to clear the smoke out of Dorothy’s house and investigate the cause of the problem, which was quickly found. The chimney flue of the kitchen cook stove was tightly closed, imprisoning all of the smoke and deadly gases inside the house.

The firemen scolded Dorothy for closing the flue. “Lady”, they exclaimed, “don’t you know that the flue has to be opened to let the coal gas escape? Your flue was tightly closed, trapping all of the deadly coal gas inside. Why was the flue closed? Were you trying to kill yourself and murder your babies?”

“I didn’t close the flue,” Dorothy countered sharply. “We’ve lived here for almost two years now and we’ve never had this problem before. Tonight, my husband was going out and he closed the flue just before he left. He said it was bitterly cold outside and that closing the flue would keep the heat in the house.”

Surely the husband knew better. The mystery of the saga is why the husband closed the flue before he left and what was he doing on that Sunday night? He did have a reputation as a “ladies man.” Was it possible that he was out gallivanting that night? Was it possible that his wife and three children were becoming a burden on his social life and he wanted to “clear the track” for another woman he was seeing that night? Who knows?

Fortunate in all of this, is that while the marriage didn’t survive, the victims of the closed flue did, and as of last count, sixteen living and breathing human beings, direct descendents of Dorothy, all owe their worldly existence to her spunky vigilance that night.

You might wonder how I know all this. Dorothy was my mother and I was one of her three babies trapped inside that gas-filled house.

Our survival, at least from my point of view, is surely a gratifying conclusion. Maybe it is to you too, dear reader. With any other outcome, it is clear, I would not have written this story…and you would never have known anything about, “The Saga of the Flippin’ Flue.”

But what is truly amazing to contemplate, everyone who exists in the world today, owes their very existence to an infinite set of equally fortuitous untold circumstances going back to the very beginnings of time.



PICTURES

1568 Kingston Road...We lived down the lane at the back of this house. The "rescuers" lived in the apartment behind the 2nd floor bow window.




The narrow lane has now been "closed off" and "roofed" and is part of the storage between the house and the former garage to the east. Both buildings and the lane between now house one business. Tow trucks used to go through this lane and one flattened my brand new tricycle parked in the lane. I never got another one since my maternal grandparents who bought the first said I should have known better than to leave it there!







Links

News story in Toronto Star, Jan 18, 1943, Pg. 8




Richard Dawkins, quote from TV appearance on CBC, "The Hour", Sept. 29/09, discussing evolution said, "The odds of me being here are infitesimally small" referring to the infinite accidents of nature going back to the beginning of time that caused his unique being to exist...a prior observation made independently as the "basic truth" in this story.

What If? ©

By Bill Longworth
April 15, 2009


The roar of the mighty Yangtze River was deafening as it funneled into the narrow gorge formed by neighbouring mountains in a remote part of Yunnan Province in South West China, where few foreigners had ever been. For that matter, only a few locals accompanying their pack donkeys would ever venture along the narrow mule track blasted out of the mountainside, high above the unruly river. But here I was!



There are those times in your life when unforeseen situations and circumstances, in retrospect, keep raising the question…What if? What if? What if? And this was one of those defining times. A time when twenty seconds was the microscopic juncture between the “here” and the “hereafter”; the great divide between Heaven and Earth—a gulf measured in seconds; an escape too close for comfort. Like the nine lives of a cat, this incident, I believe, subtracted from my lifetime quota of “close calls!”

I was taken to this desolate place by the dean of my university department at the Yunnan Finance and Trade Institute where I was employed as a “visiting professor.” The dean had grabbed some government grants to do some tourism research in some out-of-the-way places in Yunnan that had not yet been promoted for tourism. I was the guinea-pig foreigner whose opinion would factor into potential development decisions of the region, which had previously been declared a UN World Heritage Site.

The place was known as Tiger Leaping Gorge, billed from the top of its mountain peaks to the depth of its river bed, as the deepest gorge in the world. I thought it might be equally billed as the loudest place in the world from the wild water fighting its way through the narrow gorge, or the scariest place in the world in our aerie perch from which we observed the battle far below. This perch hung from rock venturing straight up to the mountain peak on one side and straight down to the howling river on the other, with no safety barriers inhibiting those who might venture too close to the edge.

Along the way, there was periodic evidence of rock slides, both on our ledge and on the river edge far below. I wondered what the fate had been of those caught in rock slides as well as those who'd been there when the road bed gave way.

You can imagine my trepidation about being transported along this mule track in a van whose mechanical condition, and whose driver’s skills, both were questionable. I also had some serious concerns about the strength of the mule track, winding its way along the mountain slope, hoping it would not give way to the load of our van and driver, myself, and the five Chinese professors on board. But saving face is a big thing with the Chinese, and I couldn’t possibly show the fear I undeniably felt.

Periodically, we did get out of the van to converse with the native Naxi people, driving their mules along the ledge, to take pictures, or, when we were able, to climb down to the Yangtze at its most impressive places, like the rock wedged gingerly in the middle of the raging river that gave the place its name, Tiger Leaping Gorge. Apparently, as legend has it, a tiger leaped across the river at this point to escape hunters.

I had no idea how far along this ledge we were going to drive, or indeed where the ledge led to, if it led anywhere beyond a “dead end.” I was beginning to feel, however, that it wasn’t much of a “Sunday” drive, and I had had just about enough.

The answer to my first question, though, appeared in an impervious cloud of dust I saw just ahead. A rockslide threw tons of rubble onto the ledge not 100 metres in front of us, a spot we would have passed in twenty seconds or so. We were close enough to catch the dust! The track became impassible. What were we now going to do? Back up the ten miles or so we had traversed along the narrow ledge?

No! The driver found a wider section of the mule track, to attempt a three-point turn-around. He inched the van forward and backward numerous times, each time with the rear end of the long-body van extending far out over the edge of the ledge. The view straight down from my seat was deadly. It was absolutely terrifying! If ever there was a time to atone for one’s sins, this was it!

Once the driver manipulated the “turn-around,” we thanked our lucky stars and turned to questioning. What if this rock slide had occurred behind us, blocking our return? Would the ledge ahead have led us anywhere? Even worse, what if the rock slide had hit the van? Would we have gotten out of the mess? I don’t know. I’m still shaking from the thoughts of the experience!

Needless to say, though, that twenty seconds proved our sense of timing impeccable that day!

That’s why I’m here to tell you all about it!


Pictures of "The Ledge" at Tiger Leaping Gorge











LINKS

Tiger Leaping Gorge video 1
Tiger Leaping Rock where the tiger crossed…I was here!...mentions frequent rock slides..this film is from 2005-2007 and I was there in 1998---there was no bus service then…the “road” was very precarious
Hike on high road at Tiger Leaping Gorge…I was on low road
Yangtze River
Yunnan
Legend of Cat's 9 Lives
Yunnan Finance and Trade Institute
UN World Heritage Site
Saving Face--Chinese social concept
Naxi People
Three point turn
Atonement for sins

Watch this amazing video portraying the mountain lifestyle of these Bolivian farmers who risk their lives every day and then give thanks for what we have. So many people's in the world live similar lives to these farmers.

Déjà vu ©

Bill Longworth, March 11, 2009


In disembarking the plane in London Heathrow, the customs officer on checking my passport asked who I was. “Longworth”, I said, “Bill Longworth”. With that and my passport in order, I entered the country.

With my worldly, sauve, debonair, adventuresome, intelligent, quick-witted, and smooth persona, I had charmed and impressed the beautiful woman interviewer and landed a job in Cairo. As you can tell, modesty would probably not be listed among my strong suits.

On heading to the new job, I decided to do a little sightseeing on the stopovers enroute.



As I didn’t have much time in London, I went immediately to a landmark I’d heard about, Kensington Market. While there, I saw the unusual Trellick Tower and went inside. As I entered, I had the strange sensation of being familiar with the building and of having been in it before. It was a building designed by well-known architect Emo Goldfinger and gained its fame because some thought it avant-garde in design, while others considered it beastly. Some brought ridicule to the building and to its architect by calling those they despised, “Goldfinger!”

While in London, I was invited to dinner in London’s exclusive Reform Club. I once again had the strange sensation of being very familiar with the place and of being there before. As before, I found it a little stuffy eating among the prim and proper members of British nobility and felt I’d rather die another day and probably another way. I did put on my rich and cultured face though as I asked the butler for a martini, shaken not stirred. I’d feel a lot more comfortable, I thought, swashbuckling through the place with a sword in my hand, similar to the guys who’d been filming here the day before.

This strange pattern of familiarity continued to play its hand as I landed in Athens and started touring some Greek sites. While touring, I did feel a strange familiarity with Greece’s Great Meteora Monastery located on top of a rock pinnacle 300 meters above the Thessalian Plain in Central Greece. “I’ve been here before”, I said to myself, not daring to suggest this to my wife who would have thought I’d gone crazy. I had to restrain myself from swinging hand-over-hand 150 meters or so on the rope suspended high over the plain to the neighbouring Monastery of All Saints St Varlaam as I was sure I’d done in the past. Wanting to keep my foolish desires private, though, I did tease her by suggesting that I had something for her eyes only.

Following my Greek stopover, I boarded the plane for Cairo. It wasn’t long before I ventured into Cairo’s Gayer-Anderson Museum, a preserved traditional Egyptian house from the 15th century. Strange how I felt that I had also been here before. Romantic visions filled my head with the knowledge that my lover would have crouched silently in the secret overhead balcony observing everything that happened as I congregated with the men below. The Spy that loved me, I thought, as I envisioned her there.

As I left the museum and headed for the pyramids just outside Cairo and then Luxor’s Karnak Temple in the South of Egypt, I had visions of also being in these places in the past. Strange though, I had no sensation of ever being in King Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings before now, nor of sunbathing on Christmas Day on a Nile Cruise boat just north of the Sudan Border until now.

I couldn’t understand why all these places were so familiar to me. Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower and the Reform Club in London, the Great Meteora in Greece, and the Gayer-Anderson Museum and the Pyramids in Cairo. Was it possible that I was the re-incarnation of someone who went before. Certainly, my science background taught me that energy could neither be created nor destroyed, and I was certainly a bundle of human energy. It struck me that I may have perhaps been revisiting places from a past life.

I started to analyze my Déjà vu experiences with scientific analysis worthy of a James Bond character.

I started to think of my personal characteristics….sauve, debonair, adventuresome, handsome, fastidious, calm, in control, quick witted, and the interests and pleasures that I loved…women, adventure, the world of espionage…a James Bond character if there ever was one.

As I thought of the places I’d been and the clues that had sprung to mind in each of the places, the whole thing started to become clear to me.

Camp X, key allied spy school was located in Oshawa, and Ian Fleming had been posted here to learn the craft. His experiences at Camp X and around Oshawa had laid the foundation for the James Bond Character in his writing. I lived in Oshawa for many years and shared many of the talents, interests, and characteristic Bond had.

“Eureka”, I exclaimed. “ I have been to all of these places before as they were all film locations for the James Bond movies. I am James Bond reincarnated. Ian Fleming fashioned his character after an earlier Oshawa version of me.

Links

Trellick Tower
Emu Goldfinger
Reform Club
Martini shaken not stirred
Great Meteora Monastery Ref.#1
Great Meteora Ref.#2
Gayer-Anderson Museum
Luxor
Reincarnation
Déjà vu
James Bond
Camp X
Ian Fleming
The Spy That Loved Me
Goldfinger Novel
Die Another Day
For Your Eyes Only

Favourite Places ©

By Bill Longworth
October 15, 2008


Everyone has a favorite place in the world…a place where they really feel at home…a place that seems to meld with their most basic self: their thoughts, their interests, their values, and their beliefs.

That favourite place is often a quiet and meditative place that absorbs the mind. It is a peaceful place that dissipates the problems and concerns of life. It’s a place where you can collect your thoughts. It is an escape. It is a reward. It is a place that blocks out all distractions no matter the humdrum and clamour around. It’s a place that we often enter through unthinking habits and routines. It is a lodestone that entices us in. Above all else, it is a place of comfort.



The place may be something simple: the bar stool where the sights and sounds are ever so familiar; the park bench where the bountiful landscape is alive with the colours and sounds of nature; the cliff overlooking the sea where the blasts of water against the rocky shore are accented by birds waffling in the breeze; a sailing yacht where the rhythmic jostling of the boat in the wind and waves gives primal comfort to the bones and to the spirit.

It may be a museum or an art gallery where one can savor in the genius of man. It may be a lecture hall where you can soak up knowledge or a workplace where you are doing your part for the betterment of mankind or simply helping to churn the wheels of commerce. It may be in stimulating young minds in the classroom. Whatever and wherever it is, everyone has that favorite place that is central to their being.

For many, the favourite place may be the hockey rink, the sports field, or the golf course which defines a significant part of their identity and gives rise to fantasizing about their wondrous plays and visualizing competition with Gretzky, Michael Jordan, or Tiger Woods.

That favorite place may be a real place or, for many, a fanciful imaginary place. But wherever it is, for them, it is real.

Your favourite place may be the setting and plot of a story you are reading or a movie you are watching or even the action in a computer game. All have the power to launch you into a fanciful fictional world populated by exciting characters which become your enemies or friends and trigger your emotions all the while they are taking you along on a journey of exciting events and situations beyond your real world experience. By so doing, they free you for too brief a time from the confines of the prison of the real world you’re in.

Often times this place becomes so habitual occupying most of your time and your thoughts and your dreams, the bulk of your efforts, and often an unhealthy proportion of your financial resources. Time spent in your favourite place can drastically limit your global perspective in plugging into the larger world. Time spent in your favourite place may give rise to the incessant questioning of those around who cannot understand the comfort you derive from that place.

For me, I indulge myself in my remote five bedroom cottage on a large lake bordering Ontario’s Algonquin Park. It’s a structure I designed and built myself. It houses collections of things that I’ve gathered locally but also from my work assignments around the world. My cottage defines who I am, and the skills and interests that I have. My cottage is the “real” me…alone, unshaven, self-reliant, resourceful, independent, creative and creating, thinking, busy in my solitude--devoid of the dress suits and ties I wore every working day.



BILL AT HIS REMOTE
COTTAGE BORDERING ONTARIO'S ALGONQUIN PARK




Whatever that favorite place in the world, it transforms your state of mind and its worldly location is any place or activity that is conducive to helping you reach that sublime mental state. Reality starts with the mind and you can have anything in there you want…no matter the size. Your mind is really your limitless “wide open spaces.”

Your world is in your head. “Close your eyes,” I’d often say to my children. “Do you see the elephant in your head? What is your elephant doing?” I’d ask. “You can have anything in there that you want! And you can do anything if you get it into your head that you can!”

No matter the place, that favourite place is the one place that creates a satisfying state of self actualization in the spirit, in the bones, and in the mind. It defines you as you define it. It is truly a place for you that has no limits on what you can think and do.

“Won’t you come in?” ...said the Spider to the Fly ©

Illustration©, Story© and Video© By
Bill Longworth
September 31, 2008


It all started innocently enough on that blustery January night.

As an introductory get-together, I arranged to catch a little music and a drink at a pub with a person I’d met casually a few days before. I thought that we might enjoy some light conversation between the music sets and get to know a little about each other.



With the fierce snowstorm and the dangerous driving conditions, I began to question the wisdom of driving anywhere that night and as she lived nearby and figuring I could walk home if the weather further deteriorated, I phoned and suggested that I’d bring over a movie to watch to save us the trek outdoors. She readily agreed…perhaps in retrospect, too readily!

I put her acceptance of our change in plans down to a good natured flexibility. How wrong could I be? She was way ahead of me on this one!

Drinks were dispensed shortly after my arrival at her apartment. The atmosphere was welcoming and relaxing. Aromatic candles were glistening everywhere. The lights were low. Soft romantic music was playing. Easy casual conversation helped us to get a cursory knowledge of each other.

Presently, she brought up the subject of watching the movie I had brought and explained that her television and DVD player were in the other room where we could watch the movie.

At that, she bounced gleefully into the TV room as I soldiered dutifully behind. As I entered, I noted that the TV room was also the bedroom….and there was no place to sit.

“Just make yourself comfortable on the bed,” she whispered suggestively. This should have immediately set off piercing alarm bells screaming in my head. This is strike two, I admonished myself. The first strike might have been coming here in the first place. I’d better brace myself for strike three!

Seeing no escape alternative, if at this point the devil within me really wanted one, I arranged the pillows as a back rest so I could sit comfortably to watch the movie. Once they were suitably arranged, I settled myself down ready to enjoy the video.

While I was arranging myself on the bed, she fed the DVD into the player. Despite numerous “apparent” attempts at getting the movie to play, she exclaimed, “I can’t get the damn thing to play!”

You could almost see the scheming wheels accelerating in her head. “I know I do have something that will play,” she announced, and as if by magic she produced another disk. The machine engorged this one which immediately started to play. It was a fireplace video along with its quiet audio of crackling logs combined with romantic music which, as you can imagine, immediately heated up the surroundings.

“Aren’t you warm?” she chirped teasingly as she started to remove her sweater. “I don’t want my clothing to get wrinkled. I have to wear it to work tomorrow!” This concern seemed to give her excuse to disrobe more as she slipped under the blankets and started nestling closer to me, obviously to keep warm.

“Won’t you come under the covers?” she tempted.

I should have seen all this coming. I could sense strike three rapidly approaching.



In the jungle, hungry carnivores know the habits of those they’re stalking and use this knowledge to skillfully move in for the kill. Was I the victim tonight?

Now, I’ve got to pinch myself to wake up and try to figure out whether this whole tale is fact or fiction—whether it has a figment of truth or is completely a figment of my dreamy imagination. You decide—because it shall remain a secret with me!

Whether fact or fiction, however, the time-worn moral of the tale is true. Be wary of hungry cougars prowling in life’s jungles as it’s near impossible to outfox a scheming and cunning cougar which has you lined up in its sites.

An Invitation Home ©

I was attending a student social shortly after starting my first teaching job in China and was amazed at how all of the university-aged students seemed to gravitate easily to the instructors, myself included.



All of the foreign staff was kept very busy by the students accepting their invitations to chat and to dance.

This seemed like “over-the-top” attention that none of us were use to. Nevertheless, it seemed marvelous to seem to be the center of the universe.

The students seemed naively innocent and were quite forward in asking questions like, “How old are you?” “How much money do you make?” “Can I visit you in your apartment?” and so on.

One of the students, Gloria, whom I’d never met, approached and asked right up, “Would you like to come to my house in Beijing and stay with my family?”

“Great”, I said, figuring it would be wonderful to meet some people and have a place to stay when I visited Beijing.

It was arranged that we should catch the train for the four hour ride north on the upcoming Saturday, about two days hence.

Gloria seemed very excited about this arrangement, a joy that was probably unmatched by mine.

Early Saturday morning, she knocked on my door and we left to catch the early morning train. Communication was a little difficult because of her limited English, my complete lack of Chinese, and her imperfect placement of em-pha’-sis on the correct syllables in addition to her heavily accented Chinglish.

These barriers did not stop our attempts at communication which seemed to improve steadily on the adventure.

When we reached Beijing, we caught a bus and ended up in her very traditional Chinese neighborhood. We walked along roadways that seemed to narrow with every subsequent turn in the maze of brick walled roads that we followed.

She finally exclaimed, “We are here,” as she opened a large wooden door in the brick wall lining the road which by this time had become not much more than a mud floored wagon path.

Inside the door, she led me further as we meandered along and around a whole series of what seemed like little brick sheds until we got to her parent’s “house.” We pushed aside a beaded door-curtain and entered her one room brick living space filled with two bunk beds, a sewing machine between the beds, a table holding a black and white shimmering TV with rabbit ears, and a light bulb hanging overhead from an electric wire…and no washroom.

Gloria lived in a traditional Beijing hutong …and wasn’t it nice to finally arrive at her home?

Reference
hutongs
siheyuan
hutong tour
hutongs in China Daily
Pictures of Life in China
Beijing's hutongs
Description of hutongs from book, "Behind the wall"
China Daily history of hutongs

The Kitchen Table ©

Bill Longworth, April 23, 2008



It was an evening sometime in the spring of 1971 when we all gathered at my invitation for a fancy dinner at Ed’s Warehouse in Downtown Toronto’s Theatre District.

Maybe it’s stretching the truth a bit to make this claim of a family dinner.

It’s hard remembering all those who attended. Sometimes the mind distorts the truth. It plays tricks causing the recall of events as you wanted them to happen rather than how they happened.

But one thing is sure. My maternal grandparents were there. This was the first and only time that I recall that anyone from my immediate family ever hosted them for dinner. They were patriarchs of the family, and if they were there, that was the only thing that mattered.

As I recall, many others on my mother’s side attended although there was no one from my father’s side, nor were they invited.

Let me explain!

The values and lifestyle of the families of each of my parents was a study in contrasts. Any gathering of them together would have been like having a dinner of caviar and carp, champagne and beer, cultured blessings and blasting expletives. Their worlds were so different, it’s doubtful that they ever set eyes on each other, or said, “hello,” never mind engaging in friendly pleasantries at the same table.

This difference in the background of my parents led to early family breakdown in the 40’s and made one brother and my sister and I wards of the Children’s Aid. This was not helpful to us in developing a sense of family. After we were retrieved from custodial care, we did gravitate a bit to my mother’s family rather than my father’s, losing complete touch with all of them.

Compounding the difficulties, were our living conditions which resulted in us feeling a little disconnected from our extended families. We were the “poor” cousins, a single-mother family of five who lived in a single room in downtown Toronto in houses where each room hosted a different family. This did make the single washroom in the houses a little busy…and worse. This living condition certainly separated us from our more prosperous relatives on both sides and undoubtedly contributed to our growing divide.

In our single room, conversation at the kitchen table was a little difficult as there was no kitchen…and no kitchen table.

Despite our childhood poverty and hardships, it's unbelievable that my brother and myself and our children are the only members of our parent’s extended families even to this day to acquire university educations.

By the time of that 1971 dinner, I was a school vice principal and well on my way to a successful career. I could well afford to host my extended family at the fancy dinner.

That dinner finally gave me a chance for a significant event around a dinner table. I announced my impending marriage and introduced my future wife and her mother to my mother’s family. It wasn’t our kitchen table, but it was a dinner table gathering for a memorable event…and my grandparents were there!

Joan and I were married months later on August 10, 1971, in a simple ceremony at Toronto City Hall in the presence of our mothers. This led to a wonderful, stable and lasting relationship resulting in the birth of three daughters, the first on August 29, 1972.

I finally got the family kitchen and the kitchen table and the family to enjoy conversations around our kitchen table.

Finegan's Wake ©

Bill Longworth,
March 6, 2008

“Hi Melanie,” I said, a little surprised to see my daughter at the door. “Thanks for dropping in. It’s great that you brought over Finegan. I haven’t seen him for a while and he’s getting enormous…growing like a weed. Excuse my mess with the paint and all everywhere. I’m so excited. I’ve just been finishing up a landscape to submit to my first juried art show. It’s tough trying to choose the three to enter. Glad you’re here to help me choose.

“Well Dad,” Melanie responded, “We can’t stay long. Finegan gets a little rambunctious as you know.”



“We’ll let everything drop for a moment then,” I said, “We’ll just push the paint and sandwiches aside and spread the landscapes out on the table and put on the kettle. Surely you have time for a coffee. Maybe you can help me make my choices while the water boils.”

“Yeah! Sounds great Dad…but we really don’t have much time.”

“This one, I’ve just been painting is one of my best, I think, and I’m sure I want to enter it after a few more touch ups. I’ve got all of those paint jars open just trying to visualize the colours I want. So what do you think about the others?”



“That one with the canoes,” Melanie exclaimed, “Don’t think I’d consider that. I don’t like the colours. Besides, I like people in paintings. I think people give you someone to relate to. You’re always wondering what’s going through their mind and it has a way of drawing you into the picture.”

“Oh, too bad! I’ve always loved that picture. It doesn’t have people, but the empty canoes certainly draw me right into the picture. The area looks remote and the empty canoes indicate there must be people nearby. It’s like I’m invited right into their camp to enjoy the spot with them. I guess when it comes right down to it, I’m going to have to decide for myself. Let’s go to the other room and have the coffee.”

“Yeah Dad,” Melanie said as we moved to the kitchen, “But it will have to be quick.“

While chatting, we heard a large crash in the back room. Rushing in, we were shocked at the sight.

Finegan, Melanie’s huge dog, had jumped up on the table to grab the lunchtime sandwich I’d left. In his excitement to grab the sandwich, he had dumped most of the paint bottles, run through the paint, and over all the paintings. They were completely ruined. I was aghast. I had nothing left for the show.

My beautiful landscapes had huge random blobs of paint, the colours of which had been mixed by the stirring of the dog’s paws. It looked as if Mr. Rorschach partnered with me by highlighting my work with his colourful paint blobs. What was I going to do?

The interesting and randomly shaped blobs did seem to provide a distinctive air to the pieces and the colours I’d left open on the table provided an interesting contrast to the original colours in my paintings. I didn’t think I'd ever seen paintings like this so as a last resort, I chose three of the best of the “new” pieces and took them over to the show.

The pieces attracted a lot of attention as I was seen as a very creative visionary doing something that no one had ever seen.

The result?

“Congratulations Bill,” said the adjudicator, “Your paintings are the best in the show. You seem to have developed a new painting frontier, a blend of landscape realism with abstract surrealism something we’ve never seen. It’s like opening up a new school of art, like Picasso’s Cubism or French Impressionism. Many around the world will now be trying to emulate your work. Congratulations!”

His remarks presented me with a moral dilemma. Should I fess up to the story behind the paintings?

“No,” I rationalized to myself. “The beauty of a painting often results from happy and unforeseen accidents rather than detailed planning, and the act of being creative is seeing the value of what you, and circumstances, have done.”

The Panties to Scanties Dilemma ©

An Original Tale by Bill Longworth
First public reading, Valentines Day, Thursday, February 14, 2008

Looking up from my newspaper and breakfast coffee, I questioned “Who was that on the phone Cuddle-muffin?” as I thought of the pair of red thong frillies I’d recently found at the bottom of her drawer…quite a change from the cottons she normally wore as I mentally recalled my recent suggestions that she get in the groove with some modern lingerie styles.



“Just a friend from my last job dear. She wanted to catch me up on all of the changes with the plant…you know, downsizing and all.”

“Well you certainly didn’t say much. She must be quite a talker,” as I thought of the new hair style and perfume she’d recently acquired.

“We seem to be getting quite a few of these strange calls recently. Quite often when I answer the phone, I’m told it must be the wrong number…or the caller just hangs up. Something seems to be going on. You seem to be rather secretive lately,” a rising and uncontrollable tenseness growing in my voice. “All those strange telephone calls you make when nothing important seems to be said. When there’s no purpose for your call…you seem to be hiding something from me!”

“Going on?” she screamed indignantly, uncustomarily raising her voice. “I think there is something going on! What are you doing with the red thong underwear I found in your toolbox?”

“Well today’s Valentines Day, Zelda, and I was going to give them to you at bedtime tonight…you know to sort of celebrate the special occasion like we used to many years ago.”

“Oh, Pussycat! Today’s also your birthday and I bought this wonderful pair of red thongs just to wear for you tonight.”

“Oh my wonderful Cuddle-muffin, and I was just beginning to think that with all those strange phone calls, there might be a problem creeping into our marriage.”

“The phone calls? Those are from all our friends discussing details of your surprise birthday party that we’re having Saturday night. Now you’ve spoiled the fun!”

“Spoiled the fun, my dear….it’s just beginning. Let’s go upstairs and try on the new stuff. “

The moral of the story? The transition from panties to scanties is problematic! Like your favourite dessert, the pleasure should be consumed immediately.