Message in a Bottle



Toby’s mining expeditions have finally paid off. Today the little digger found the putrid remains of a cow or maybe a human; I don’t know which. Yogi dropped the ribs when I shouted at him but Toby somehow couldn’t bring himself to do that. Maybe it was because half of what he was swallowing was already down his gullet and the other half was hanging out. I had to pull it out of him. Good thing I had Karel’s special running gloves on.

I walked fifteen kilometers today (9.330 miles for those of you who haven’t made the conversion yet) to the village where we used to live in a 600-year-old half-timbered house. Imagine! It has survived the French Revolution, the Plague, the Basel earthquake, two world wars, occupation, liberation, occupation, liberation and so forth. I’d say more but my knowledge of French history is lamentable.

I also officially become a bag lady toting a big plastic bag through the forests and along country roads in search of beer and wine bottles, even tin cans. I can spot a glass beer bottle at twenty-five paces, provided I walk like one of those stupid dogs you used to see in the back of people’s cars with the heads bobbing from side to side. It’s the only way to spot the glass, plastic and car stereo speakers flung in the ditch.

It's also the best way to spoil my enjoyment of the walk. However, to put a positive spin on the preoccupation, I have decided to make bottle retrieval my mission in life—like the man I met in Cambodia who has made it his mission to rid Cambodia of landmines or if you prefer, anti-personnel devices or some such rubbishy moniker. I expect to be on a reality show soon. There must be a slot for me.

No science podcasts on my Ipod today. I’ve run out. I even switched off the BBC political stuff and immersed myself in the ‘spirituality of sports’. At least those were the first two Tapestry (CBC) podcasts I heard.

Since the leaves are emerging, a month too soon, I won’t be able to see the bottles in a couple of weeks, so I am looking forward to getting in touch with my ‘inner self’. In fact, I almost did about a week ago.

I was fuming (as usual) about the thoughtless felling of trees best situated to hold back erosion, and the damn beer bottles, and the garbage thrown here and there, when I realized I couldn’t take it any more. It was at that moment I experienced an epiphany. I know it’s a bit late for an epiphany. Everybody’s already had theirs and appeared on Oprah long ago, but I’ve never been one to follow a trend. I think I finally gave into the idea of a mini skirt around the time of the Annie Hall look.

In any event I came home and told Karel I had found the meaning of life.

“An epiphany?” he said.

“No really!” I said, ignoring his uncanny ability to read my mind. “I think I’ve had a sudden revelation about the meaning of life.”

“And it’s located in the centre of your body?” he leered at me in my tight running pants.

“Well that might be where it is for you but my epiphany was more profound.”

“Tell me,” he said, still with that lascivious look.

“I discovered that I don’t have to take the weight of the world on my shoulders. I don’t have to be pissed off all the time at everything and how badly people behave, the sins of the world and all that.”

“Oh?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, I finally got it. There’s Jesus for that. His back is broad enough. He died for our sins.”

“Are you just getting that now?”

“Yeah.” I felt a little deflated but then he’s the son of a clergyman.

“It’s always been like that, didn’t you know?”

“Maybe I knew, but I didn’t really 'get' it. What a relief!”

But that was last week. I don’t know how long an epiphany lasts, I suppose for all eternity, but today I must have picked up thirty empty beer bottles and one Gewurtztramer 2006 Medaille d’Or wine bottle.

I feel my faith waning.


This piece will appear in the April edition of Hello Basel 2008.

Santa Baby






He sees when you are sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows if you’ve been bad or good.
So be good for goodness sake.
Most North Americans will recognize the above lyrics and can probably hum the tune. Oddly enough, it was our Egyptian tour guide who reminded me of the Christmas jingle. His explanation that an angel sat on each shoulder, one to record his good deeds and the other his bad all in preparation for the final reckoning caused my mind to wander to the ditty.
He's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out
Who's naughty and nice.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town penned in 1922, has been performed by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, The Beach Boys, The Jackson Five, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen…need I go on?
I first heard it when I was three years old and didn’t much care for the message. Who was this guy who could note my good and bad behaviour? Didn’t I have a big brother for that? Lest I forget the power of Santa, my parents reinforced the myth and told me he could reward or punish me by giving or withholding Christmas presents.
Newly emigrated from Europe to Canada, we had no television. My brother and I would listen to nightly radio broadcasts charting Santa’s progress from the North Pole to Toronto in time for his annual parade, sponsored for seventy-seven years by Eaton’s, a once prosperous and now defunct Canadian department store.
Well I remember that November day in 1953. I wore elegant hand-me-downs from the daughter of my mother’s New York friend. Her hand-tailored spring coat, transparent nylon gloves and best of all underpants with the back panel totally covered by rows of frills (I sooo wanted to wear back to front) offered no warmth whatsoever. Toronto shares the same latitude as Rome but not its November temperatures, the average being 7°C. All about me, Canadian kids wore knitted hats, woollen mittens and snow suits while I stood in front of my mother with chattering teeth, bone-chilled bare legs and frozen fingers.
I vividly recall that virtually all the parade’s participants wore white gloves but because one’s memory often proves to be faulty, I located a Canadian Government website to verify my recollection. Recorded memories described the penetrating cold that day. Archived film footage of the 1953 parade showed well-bundled children and sure enough, white gloves were the order of the day. That’s what made the next incident so frightening.
Just as a Massey-Ferguson tractor pulled into view a float bearing Santa and his reindeer, out of nowhere, huge white-gloved hands grabbed me from behind, plucked me off the ground, hoisted me to massive shoulders and pinned me there. I did not know whose hatted head I was clutching. Warned never to go with or talk to strangers, what was I to do when abducted?
You better watch out,
You better not cry,
Better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
Petrified I could not enjoy my vantage point. Who was this guy? Finally, beneath the peaked policeman’s cap the head spoke to me with my father’s voice. “We’ll go meet Santa now.” Wearing his Saint John’s Ambulance uniform under his great coat, my father had been on parade duty that day.
A brief ride on an ancient streetcar, heated by a wood stove, and I was standing with trepidation outside the brass-handled spinning glass and wooden doors of Eaton’s Queen Street branch. I had never seen revolving doors before. With every turn a gust of hot air swooshed out into the street. Eager to be warm, I dashed into an empty partition of the revolving door and got my head caught between the door and the doorjamb. Pandemonium broke out. I may have screamed, my mother too. She pushed my head; my father pulled it. Hours later, or so it seemed, with sore ears and angry parents, I was led to an ‘alligator’. Horrified by the backward slanting slats of an ancient wooden escalator and none too keen to balance on the rickety rolling slats that didn’t quite form steps, I balked.
Indiana Jones had an easier time entering the Temple of Doom than I had reaching Toyland. Amid the bawling, the wailing and the coaxing, I edged toward to the jolly chuckler. The closer I got to him, the more intrigued I became by his sparkling white beard. When it came my turn to sit on his knee, I did so without fear—so keen was I to examine that beard. It was a fake. I said so.
No longer did Santa or his tab keeping terrify me. Before the year was out, my elder brother, an expert in all things then and now, said there was no such person as Santa Claus, but I’d already divined that.
A half-century later, Santa’s surveillance capabilities are no match to those of credit card and cell phone companies, closed circuit television or the Internet Interpol. They know if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.


This piece was published in the Dec/Jan 2008 edition of Hello Basel.