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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 22 November 2021

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And, I'm seldom here - to sleep, otherwise - like in Toronto - I'm roaming the streets, exploring. 

When I am here there's a few things. The guy that's forever on his computer - doing what? I don't think he's left the building in 3 days. There are the people that share my room - 1 who seems to never go out, the other leaves early and is back around 4:00. 

This sharing a room with men who's names I don't know, I find it despairing. It would be despairing if I did know there names - I'm merely a private person, and hate the commonality of shared sleeping or living arrangements.

Nonetheless, in the common area, reading my book, trying to ignore the euro-trash that accumulates in such places, the little Napoleon in the kitchen (short- French - with attitude to spare - although his cooking smells amazing), the perpetually drunk Brits and Aussies and various other slightly-more-respectable nationalities, sitting next to a couple of guys, they begin chatting to me. About their day, they'd woke up, dropped some acid, took some shrooms, headed on down to Stanley Park, were impressed by some drop-dead goddess of a woman that picked up the shit after her dog. For some reason it amused them greatly, they kept coming back to it, probably you had to be there. At the moment they were cracking open their umpteenth beer, rolling a joint on the table, telling me about their lives, then coming back to the woman who was beautiful - just gorgeous, and they watched her pick up her dog's shit - "just like that" - don't you know, a little gesture - I break for a cigarette. Outside, been drinking away with them, don't want to get too carried away or even try to keep up - these guys, clearly the pillars of their communities - really, I attract them. And I meet Tom, from Calgary, he's here - well, he doesn't say, works in geology in Calgary. And we're chatting and he's telling me he was doing Cocaine earlier and I'm incredulous - here? There's probably no real Cocaine for a few miles - what kind of shit was he snorting - he's not chewing his cheeks or grinding - none of the tells - and - before you know it he's telling me he's not feeling so well and does a nosedive into the pavement. Hits it hard, right on his head, before I can react or catch him. I sit him up and call 911.

8 minutes on hold.

8 fucking minutes on hold.

"We're experiencing higher than average call volumes..."

I hang up.  

He's conscious - tells me he's feeling better, take him into a bar. Buy some nachos - can't leave him like this - don't want him just dying, out of the blue, and so sit with him, listen to the band, watch the people.

He's feeling fine, fine, and then - again - not so much, and he's more fortunate than I, he calls 911, gets through, the police are there in a minute, and he gets in with them to go to the hospital. 

Never a dull moment.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 13 November 2021

Hits: 986

And, without notice ("Next Week", I was told) he's moved. 

I don't know what I expected. "Extended Care", I imagined a room of his own, communal facilities, a nurse or helper to ensure he was getting his laundry washed, the care he needed. 

Wow. 

This was not it. Similar to the hospital, a room, shared with 3 others, curtains for privacy, elevated hospital beds, a locker for his possessions. 

If you've never been to one, go. Now. This is what it's like to be old and poor. And the people there - any of them - all of them - they need company. Anyone. Everyone. This isolate the elderly, remove them from the community - it's a dystopian nightmare framed as socialism - it's fucking hell. 

Fucking bloody hell.

It was good I had my son along, because it was a pretty quick agreement that if things get to this point - and - never say never, life has that sense of irony, and - I bear witness, I'm a smoker - and hard-living alcoholic - and - if you knew me before I became one you knew how unlikely it was - so - grim, but possible - take me up the mountain, let me out with a backpack, a few packs of cigarettes and a bottle of Vodka, and don't organize a search party for a few weeks. 

'cause I can take care of myself.

And taking care of myself would be better than this.

I think Stormy agrees as well, only he doesn't have the nerve. I get that. It's not an easy decision. Never an easy decision, and - framing it with the right presence of mind - this - well, Buddhists spend their whole life preparing. It's not an easy thing. 

The home, grimly connected to the hospital, we're arriving close to lunch, 11:00 AM, there's a couple of dozen people in their wheelchairs in front of the TV. The big  communal TV. 

This is grim. 

None of them alive, even vaguely, merely old with the blood pumping through them via hidden mechanics under their wheelchairs, gaping, dead smiles and grimaces, it's a fucking horror show. You could easily imagine them being kept alive solely to give their pensions to the home. And his room - like at the hospital - shared with 3 others. It's what I imagine a hospice to be like, only I have no word that he's dying, only - well, this is no place for the living so I have to presume the worst. And the literature I read - well, dire, true, but not so dire as this.

Halloween should be celebrated here. They would like that. The ghouls of old age and infirmity. 

And to think I had hopes he would lead their art classes.

I tell my son afterwards, he gets it, he's in agreement, it's a living will of sorts, dad's last big prospecting trip, he can drive me up the mountain and pick me up in a week.

***

Today day, grey and dismal, raining, the clouds are smudging into the trees a few hundred feet above Nelson. Read the paper, missing people, always, it's seasonal, you know, intuitively, instinctively - why and how - and this grim settling of spiritual beliefs, this reconciling of good Karma, bad Karma, lives well and poorly lived, people victims of the pandemic, economies well out of their control - and feeling the pain of everyone that lives here - and dies here - it is legion - it's the pain of affordable housing, jobs, decent pay, security, friendship, it's the loss of the old world, in with the new, it's the same pain felt the world over, only here - it's under a magnifying glass, everything is - well, more than ordinary. More than it should be. 

Today, again, this time via the bus, almost four hours on the bus for a 40 minute visit.

(Refinery/Smelter above Trail. No matter where you look...)

The trees, the white birch and evergreen and the others, fruit and nut trees with overgrown moss hanging from every limb, against the immediate closing in of the fog, white, grey, claustrophobic, I imagine, riding, a corpse hanging from every tree, for this - lush as it is, it marks the end of days. 

But today he's lucid, I find him - not in his room, or in the communal area watching TV, not at the art table doing art with the rest of them, but off on his own at the end of a long corridor in his wheelchair looking out the window. He's glad to see me - it's been 3 weeks since he had a cigarette. Actually, it was last Sunday, and I correct him gently, but I know, I know, it doesn't matter. 

I wheel him outside - he wants a cigarette. They took his cigarettes from him when he first arrived - and - really - why? I understand, not indoors, but here - at the end of his life - to deny him what he regards as a luxury - is wrong. 

That's it. 

We go outside and make it off to the edge of the parking lot. He's got a plan. A SCHEME. Stormy's scheme. That I'm going to bust him out of there, we have to leave his wheelchair - he can walk fine - don't you know - he's been keeping it secret - THEY don't know- and - 

We're gonna take all of his money out of the bank and drive to Campbell River and live with my son....

Hmmmm.

I'm not so sure about this. It would make a great movie - for sure - or biography - or documentary - but - bloody hell - 

Maybe not. Maybe not now. But I get it - we gotta bust you outta here!!! (And - spoiler - they have a passcode at the elevator - so that residents don't escape!!!!"

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 24 October 2021

Hits: 1053

Having done pirates, now let's cover a few of the lesser known but much beloved highwaymen and outlaws.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highwayman

Notable examples include: Claude Duval, whose memorial reads: 

Here lies DuVall: Reder, if male thou art,

Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart.

Much havoc has he made of both; for all

Men he made to stand, and women he made to fall

The second Conqueror of the Norman race,

Knights to his arm did yield, and ladies to his face.

Old Tyburn’s glory; England’s illustrious Thief,

Du Vall, the ladies' joy; Du Vall, the ladies' grief.

Wiki on Claude Duval: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Duval

And the aptly named Rufus Goodlove, who seduced the wives of wealthy merchants only to rob their houses. 

Find more on the List of Highwaymen at Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highwaymen

&, since we're on the theme - Outlaws: "Black Bart", noted for his charm and verses occasionally left behind at the scene of the crime:

I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor, and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bart_(outlaw)

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 24 October 2021

Hits: 1092

Inspired by Marcel Schwob's "Imaginary Lives" I took to researching some of the more entertaining pirate histories (popular reading back in the day, and if "Pirates of the Caribbean" is any guide, as popular today...).

Of Note - The Pirate's Code:

I. Every man has a vote in affairs of moment; has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, at any time seized, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.

II. Every man to be called fairly in turn, by list, on board of prizes because, (over and above their proper share,) they were on these occasions allowed a shift of clothes: but if they defrauded the company to the value of a dollar in plate, jewels, or money, marooning was their punishment. If the robbery was only betwixt one another, they contented themselves with slitting the ears and nose of him that was guilty, and set him on shore, not in an uninhabited place, but somewhere, where he was sure to encounter hardships.

III. No person to game at cards or dice for money.

IV. The lights and candles to be put out at eight o'clock at night: if any of the crew, after that hour still remained inclined for drinking, they were to do it on the open deck;

V. To keep their piece, pistols, and cutlass clean and fit for service.

VI. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man were to be found seducing any of the latter sex, and carried her to sea, disguised, he was to suffer death;

VII. To desert the ship or their quarters in battle, was punished with death or marooning.

VIII. No striking one another on board, but every man's quarrels to be ended on shore, at sword and pistol.

IX. No man to talk of breaking up their way of living, till each had shared one thousand pounds. If in order to this, any man should lose a limb, or become a cripple in their service, he was to have eight hundred dollars, out of the public stock, and for lesser hurts, proportionately.

X. The Captain and Quartermaster to receive two shares of a prize: the master, boatswain, and gunner, one share and a half, and other officers one and quarter.

XI. The musicians to have rest on the Sabbath Day, but the other six days and nights, none without special favour.[44][45]

In short, the Pirate trade was not only lucrative, but one of the fairest around - far superior to the Royal Navy. 

Start with Bartholomew Roberts, inspiration for "The Dread Pirate Roberts" in the Princess Bride

... a tall black [i.e. dark complexioned] Man, near forty Years of Age ... of good natural Parts, and personal Bravery, tho' he apply'd them to such wicked Purposes, as made them of no Commendation, frequently drinking 'Damn to him who ever lived to wear a Halter'.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Roberts

And, my favorite: Captain Stede Bonnet, gentleman tobacco farmer who turned to Piracy to escape a nagging wife, only to end up being schooled by "Teach, or "Blackbeard". 

In his Way he met with a Pyrate Sloop of ten Guns, commanded by one Major Bonnet, lately a Gentleman of good Reputation and Estate in the Island of Barbadoes, whom he joyned; but in a few Days after, Teach, finding that Bonnet knew nothing of a maritime Life, with the Consent of his own Men, put in another Captain, one Richards, to Command Bonnet’s Sloop, and took the Major on aboard his own Ship, telling him, that as he had not been used to the Fatigues and Care of such a Post, it would be better for him to decline it, and live easy and at his Pleasure, in such a Ship as his, where he should not be obliged to perform Duty, but follow his own Inclinations.

Wikipedia on Captain Stede Bonnet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stede_Bonnet

Wikipedia on Blackbeard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard

Wikipedia on Captain Kidd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd

on Anne Bonny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny

on Calico Jack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_Jack

on Henry Morgan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgan

The original "A General History of the Pyrates", via Project Guttenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40580/40580-h/40580-h.htm

Now, before this turns to into a long list of Pirates I'll just refer you onward to Wiki's list of Pirates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pirates

And their list of Pirate Flags: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolly_Roger

And, finally, this article on the loot recovered from the wreck of Black Sam Bellamy's "Whydah" - an estimated $100 MILLION dollars worth of treasure found only 115 feet from shore and 30 feet down. Link: https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/article/World-s-only-real-pirate-treasure-dug-up-and-5200102.php