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IN THIS ISSUE

• Richard Ross nears the end of his stay in Paris
• Arthur Pays demolishes houses in war-torn London
• Don Henderson is wallowing in fresh-picked fruit
• Jack Peaker tells what happened nine months later
• Rafiki´s story explains the importance of results
• Anita Henderson muses on growing up
• The editor has a question

Richard Ross continues his chronicles from abroad:

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

One morning, I found myself in the middle of a government convoy. Before I realized the reason behind the mob of secret service and police, both Jack Chirac, the former President, and his recently elected successor, Nicolas Sarcozy, exited a jet-black town car only a few yards in front of me. Sarcozy, only a few feet off the ground, featured a bronze tan he had recently acquired on his very controversial post-victory vacation in the Riviera.

In my last few weeks of classes, I naturally had more academic demands than I had become adjusted too, including a couple finals and a decent sized term paper. I chose to write about The Cafe Procope, the oldest cafe in all of France. My final exam for my Sorbonne class was held in a colossal structure just outside of the city. During a span of three hours, 3,OOO students from every crevice on the earth (except France) engaged in a grammar, dictation, and writing segmented exam. I had never been amid so much diversity, nor had I ever experienced such intensity when it comes to testing.

Once it was time to say good-bye to all of my new friends, faculty, and advisers, it was also time to say hello to my mother, Amy Bell Ross. She arrived on the 31st of May, and we spent the first evening in the dining room of the apartment that had been my home for the last four months. My host mother prepared a lovely French dish, and my mother, speaking only English and my host mother, only French, somehow discussed hotels, current politics, and wedding traditions.

The next morning, we commenced our jaunt, first arriving in Aix-en Provence. My mother, passionate in her shopping, navigated the next few days around the outside market locations. From Aix, we followed another market to Isle de la Sorde, spending two nights; then another night in Avignon and another market in St. Remy. In a small village north of Provence, we landed in a spectacular bed and breakfast. In the form of an old restored bastide, the accommodation overlooked the cook-book covers of Provence. Just below, in between the infinite columns of grape vines, lay a remote rift containing a lonesome, but a very come-hither swimming pool. Around the perimeter, the property was enclosed by blossoming lavender, rosemary bushes, and ripe cherry trees. In just those two days, entirely reclined, I sat poolside, achieving a serenity that even a dead man would envy.

During the next few days we left Provence behind, and zigzagged through the narrow and hilly roads of Beaujolais. Using the city of Lyon as our launching pad, we learned much of its character and saw how the French operate in a large metropolis without the Eiffel Tower.

When my mother departed, I resumed my affairs with Paris. Essentially homeless, I was taken in by the astounding generosity of my Bell cousins, Jackie, JJ, Chelsea and Morgan, who had conveniently arrived on holiday.

One morning, I decided I had enough of Paris and I needed a change of scenery for my remaining days. Just as any homeless person does, I fled for a warmer climate. I knew as long as I made it to the southern coast, I would be a happy camper. I shot down to Nice in about five hours, exited outside the train station, and within a few minutes, I located the backpacker traffic. I occupied the next four days and nights in the company of an eclectic and electrifying bunch. The youthful and indefatigable energy of the hostel was the perfect way to conclude the semester.

For the very last two days, I joined Leo and his jetlag company, only to soak up the jet set mindset of Saintroooooooo pay... Somewhere between the coconut scent of suntan lotion and conspicuous consumption, dangling tan legs and mammoth yachts, we were able to experience that fabulous life we are constantly reminded of on ... let´s say VH1.

By the time the hot sun had lifted on June 19th, I was already in a two-day plane, train, and automobile adventure to return to the homeland. Taking a train east to Grenoble, I observed a tranquil and green metropolis balancing on the threshold of the French Alps. Though Grenoble´s vast geography and layout only explained how far the airport could be from the train station, my last European taxi ride subsequently turned out to be my most expensive. I boarded my 15 Euro plane flight and one hour forward, I landed into a society that seemed to be two seasons behind. When I entered a cold and wet downtown Dublin - in search of room and board for the evening - my pink bathing suit, white Panama jack hat and chestnut tan conveyed to the scarf-wearing, umbrella-holding Irish that I had recently broken loose from the sub-Saharan African exhibit at the municipal zoo.

In the morning, I flew above the still grey clouds of Ireland and crossed the Atlantic. Landing in Logan Airport in the late afternoon, I was happy enough to see the sun, so I suppose I was happy enough to be home.

To be concluded.

Arthur Pay goes back to work after being married:

"WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE LAST WAR, DADDY?"

After completing the demolition of the houses in Matlock Road, we were sent to a large site in Southwell Grove Road E11. There were about thirty or more standard terraced houses to be demolished. We had a foreman but he quickly ensconced himself in the front room of one of the least damaged houses and we did not hear or see much of him unless the word passed around that the visiting foreman was arriving, when he came out shouting. None of the men, numbering about twelve, had any experience of building or demolition and we were just let loose on the dangerous structures and told to level the sites flat. A lorry and driver was delegated to each site to clear both rubble and salvageable building materials, like cleaned bricks, slates, lead and so on. Most of the smaller timbers were burned.

One of the effects of handling bricks was the lime getting onto your bare hands. We didn´t have gloves and the lime burned the skin on our hands until we were taught the old building trade remedy of pissing on them, so that the uric acid neutralized the lime.

We had a carpenter on site who seemed to spend most of his time with the foreman, cutting up flooring for firewood. The foreman had returned from army service in Europe and was obsessed with the idea that German pilots would always machine-gun anything burning on the ground, so whenever there was a red alert during the day he insisted on all bonfires being extinguished. One overcast day I did see a German plane sailing over High Road Leytonstone, but when he opened up with his machine guns he seemed to be aiming at a local barrage balloon.

We were paid on the basis of "cost plus", which meant that the contractor was paid the cost of wages and materials plus a percentage for administration. The cost of hiring the lorries was on the basis of the number of loads taken to the rubbish shoot, but some drivers managed to beat the system by getting their loads booked in at the entrance to the site, proceeding with their full load to the exit, and coming back an hour or so later with the same load to be booked in again.

We were instructed to save any serviceable slates from the houses that were to be demolished and for several days we clambered over the roofs, which were filthy dirty and most dangerous, endeavouring to salvage unbroken slates. These were carefully stacked on edge but after a while they disappeared, and we subsequently discovered that the foreman was selling them to a builder, who presumably charged the council for them when repairing other roofs.

After that, we didn´t risk our necks, but dropped the roofs to ground level before attempting to salvage slates. Any lead, known as "bluey", or any non-ferrous metal also used to disappear on its way to the shoot, and there must have been a substantial trade between the lorry drivers and the local scrap merchants. I must confess that I pinched some lead-covered cable to run electricity from the house at 14 Kings Road to the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden.

Despite the ignorance of the workforce in building construction and demolition, we quickly evolved the easiest and safest methods of taking a house to pieces.

Never believe the expression "safe as houses". If you know where to kick, you can demolish a house with your boots, and with a pick and shovel it is a doddle. We proceeded as follows: First, a pickaxe extracted the fireplace in the downstairs, and the hearth and firebricks were cleared away. This allowed for the indispensable item of a fire to be lit, and provided a comfortable place for meals and shelter from inclement weather before going on to demolish the house.

Sometimes there was a gas stove in the house, and we discovered that the first thing the gas company did after an "incident" was to empty the gas meter, but they rarely relocked or even replaced the empty coin box. We could therefore obtain gas by putting a coin into the top of the meter and collecting the shilling when it dropped out of the bottom. Someone also discovered that an excellent way of lighting fires was to use the thermite from unexploded incendiary bombs that the Luftwaffe had sometimes obligingly left.

The next step in demolishing a house was to remove all the woodwork from the first floor: the architraves, doors, skirting boards, lathe and plaster partitions, window frames, etc. The flooring was left as a shovelling base.

Next we dropped the roof, which was accomplished by tying a rope around the piers between the windows of the front bedroom and pulling, when the whole roof pivoted about the centre of the house and tilted down towards the front. A rope round the ridge then pulled the whole roof, timbers, slates and all, clear into the roadway. To accomplish this, everyone in the gang was press-ganged into "giving a pound". The plaster was then knocked away from the lathes and the serviceable joists and rafters cleaned off and stacked.

When all the lathes were extracted and burned, the first floor made an excellent stage for loading lorries with rubbish without having to lift it with shovels from ground level, and the lorries could be backed up over the front garden right up to the building.

The immediate neighbourhood of the site was deserted, so when it was necessary to attend to the wants of nature you looked around for a suitable lavatory in houses awaiting demolition. There was no water, because the mains had been cut off and the drains damaged by bombs. As a consequence, there were a lot of rats about the place, and in particular they were always about when you wanted a little quiet and privacy. You always carried a substantial stick as well as paper in case you were caught with your trousers down. They were very big rats!

To be continued.

Don Henderson learns about

A ROCKIN´ - A ROLLIN´ - A SHAKIN´ - AND A SPLASHIN´

We live on the sunny shore of Lake Erie, in the village of Port Rowan, which is at the base of Long Point, the largest feature on Lake Erie. It stretches 33 kms., almost half way across the lake.

Ours is a seniors´ enclave on the edge of Port Rowan of approximately 200 houses. It is our good fortune to have as our next-door neighbours Mary and Jake Petkau. Mary was born and brought up in Port Rowan and when she and Jake married in 1952, they bought a farm. After farming for 50 years, they moved to our street. Jake knows everything and everyone in the area. He is my constant source of information about soil, crops, history, and anything about this area.

Last week Jake and I went sweet cherry picking. On the way he drove into a farmyard, where a dozen men were taking a coffee break. Jake said, "Wow, I think they are shaking today. I have never seen shaking before and I always wanted to."

Well, sure enough, they were shaking today. This is a huge farming operation, hundreds of acres of different crops. This day, we were in their sour cherry orchard with 8,500 trees planted in tight rows. The crew had four tractors fitted with fork lifts, which ran at high speeds back and forth from the trees to the processing shed.

I soon found out what ´shaking´ was.

Two machines ran on each side of the row of trees. Both had large sides at a 45-degree angle, which caught the cherries as they fell. One machine had a large clamp which grasped the trunk, 6" above the ground. It moved very fast, back and forth. In 12 seconds the whole tree full of ripe fruit had rained down onto the sides and rolled into troughs at the bottom. These lifted and dumped onto a moving conveyor belt, which carried the cherries up, where they fell into a very large fruit box. It had 15" of water in it, so the cherries would float and not be crushed under their own weight. The box was filled to the top, a tractor would remove it and install another in its place, and the whole outfit would move to the next tree, continuing until each box was full.

The tractor would then race, and I do mean race, to the processing shed, where the container was placed over a long row of grills in the floor. A hose was inserted into the bottom of the box and the flow of water would push any debris to the top, where it was skimmed off. The box full of water and cherries was then loaded onto a ´reefer´ truck and shipped to the processing factory for pitting and packing.

Each container had 1200 lbs. of cherries and 300 lbs. of water in it. They processed around 60 tons every day, and the whole orchard yielded about 500 tons.

This operation has other orchards, each with up to 8,000 trees. They also grow asparagus, cucumbers, and other crops. To pick these crops they have 45 picking machines, on each of which five or six labourers sit and pick as the machine moves through the rows.

Oh yes! We drove on to our orchard and picked a few buckets of sweet cherries from trees that were bending from the weight of the fruit. It only took about 15 minutes and they are the sweetest and juiciest I´ve ever tasted.

ED. NOTE: Most of us do our cherry picking in superstores, paying about $2.99 a pound for the privilege. And now Don tells me they have been eating fresh-picked peaches all week!

Jack Peaker sends this story:

NINE MONTHS LATER ...

Jack decided to go skiing with his buddy, Bob. So they loaded up Jack´s minivan and headed north. After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a terrible blizzard. So they pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive lady who answered the door if they could spend the night.

"I realize it´s terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to myself, but I´m recently widowed," she explained. "I´m afraid the neighbours will talk if I let you stay in my house."

"Don´t worry," Jack said. "We´ll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if the weather breaks, we´ll be gone at first light." The lady agreed, and the two men found their way to the barn and settled in for the night. Come morning, the weather had cleared, and they got on their way. They enjoyed a great weekend of skiing.

But about nine months later, Jack got an unexpected letter from an attorney. It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that it was from the attorney of that attractive widow they had met on the ski weekend.

He dropped in on his friend Bob and asked, "Bob, do you remember that good-looking widow from the farm we stayed at on our ski holiday up north about nine months ago?"

"Yes, I do." said Bob.

"Did you, er, happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house and pay her a visit?"

"Well, um, yes," Bob said, a little embarrassed about being found out, "I have to admit that I did."

"And did you happen to give her my name instead of telling her your name?"

Bob´s face turned beet red and he said, "Yeah, look, I´m sorry, buddy. I´m afraid I did. Why do you ask?"

"She just died and left me everything."

(And you thought the ending would be different, didn´t you?)

Rafiki sends this story about

WHAT REALLY COUNTS IN THE END

A priest dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates.

Ahead of him is a guy who´s dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket and jeans. Saint Peter addressed him, "Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you into the Kingdom of Heaven?"

The guy replies, "I´m Joe Cohen, taxi driver, from New York."

Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and say to the taxi driver, "Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Now it´s the priest´s turn. He stands erect and booms out, "I am the Right Reverend Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary´s for the last forty- three years."

Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the priest, "Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Just a minute," says the priest. "That man was a taxi driver. Why does he get a silken robe and golden staff?"

"Results," shrugged Saint Pete. "While you preached, people slept. When he drove, people prayed."

Moral of the story: It´s performance, not position, that counts.

Anita Henderson forwards these thoughts:

AS WE GROW UP

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn´t supposed to ever let us down probably will. We will have our hearts broken, probably more than once, and it´s harder every time. We´ll break hearts too, so we must remember how it felt when ours were broken.

We´ll fight with our best friends. We´ll blame a new love for things an old one did. We´ll cry because time is passing too fast, and we´ll eventually lose someone we love.

So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you´ve never been hurt, because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you´ll never get back. Don´t be afraid that your life will end - be afraid that it will never begin.

- Anonymous

PLASTIC BAGS

San Francisco recently banned plastic bags, requiring large retailers to use recyclable materials, and a host of other cities, including Boston, Phoenix, Santa Cruz, and Portland, are considering similar measures. I don´t know how many cities in Canada are considering this step, but I do know that many people already carry their own bags when they go shopping. I do myself, and recently found myself running out of plastic bags to wrap the garbage in before depositing in the bin.

My question is, what do we do with our garbage when we have no more plastic bags? I live in an apartment which recycles paper and containers, but we have no way of disposing of kitchen waste except in the trash. If we had city-wide collection of compostible materials, I would gladly cooperate, but until that time, I am left with a motley assortment of coffee grounds, banana and orange peels, overripe tomatoes, and plants past their prime. Do you know of any solutions that have been proposed for this problem? It is one that will have to be addressed when our cities follow the lead of those mentioned above.

If we learned that Al Qaeda was secretly developing a new terrorist technique that could disrupt water supplies around the globe, force tens of millions from their homes, and potentially endanger our entire planet, we would be aroused into a frenzy and deploy every possible asset to neutralize the threat. - Nicholas Kristof