Kirkhams Road update

I've scribbled a bit about Kirkhams Road here before. I'm not sure why I find it interesting. It's not really major, and never really was. Even back in the 1960s, it didn't really take you anywhere. It was just a wiggly little road that took you north and south across the Rouge River at the far east end of Metro, in an area that remains the last rural remnant inside the City of Toronto. But, it's a place in transition, and it's about to be largely lost, so I guess that's the attraction.

Kirkhams Road was effectively the northern extension of what's now Meadowvale Road in Scarborough, at least northward from Sheppard Avenue, where they met at a brief dogs leg intersection, just separated enough to be irritating. There were scores of such wonky intersections all throughout northern Metro into the 1960s. This was one of them.

Below is Kirkhams Road in the mid-1950s, somewhere around the time Hurricane Hazel came through... probably just before, because if I'm not mistaken, its bridge over the Rouge was one of the ones we lost, and in replacing it they normalized the course of the road south of the river somewhat. Kirkham Road is in the middle here; the one that snakes to the west to cross the Rouge before resuming its straight concession line course. The major road running more or less across the bottom of the view is Sheppard Avenue, which then, as now, veers off to the southeast; its continuation easterly across the Rouge is Twyn Rivers Road, a charming little stroll down into and up out of the valley, much favoured by locals, especially on weekends. (The view is from McMaster University's online plates of southern Ontarian overflights undertaken 1954-1955, covering an area called home by nearly every third Canadian today.)

...And below is what the same area looks like today, or two or three years ago, at any rate. You can see that this is essentially where development stopped in northeast Scarborough, which is now the quasi-official, maybe, but not quite, might be one day, Rouge Park. Meadowvale Road is the major spaghetti that's superseded Kirkhams Road, and the reason it could be closed a few years ago when its bridge was deemed structurally unsound to remain in the city's road grid.

I was looking back on what I'd said and shown about the road on the blog, and I noticed that when I was there on March 25th I was marvelling about how warm it was, and wondering what that would mean for spring. Well, as I recall, that didn't last. We had a crappy spring that never really arrived. It just lingered in tepidity until suddenly one day it was summer, and then summer quit early around mid-September, and we've been having Halloween weather a month early. Just mentioning this as an aside so when I look back at this the next time I post about Kirkham Road, I'll have a seasonal frame of reference.

Anyway, I was out there again yesterday, because I'd finally found a little information about what they have in mind with the work they've been doing there lately. I knew it was at least partly about replacing the water system that's currently serviced by pipes on the underside of the closed bridge. They're putting it through in what's called a "trenchless" (whatever that means) tunnel under the river between Kirkhams Road and Meadowvale Road. The hillside between them south of the bridge, where it was so overgrown in earlier shots, is now a bare patch of soil with big holes dug in it and tubes about a yard wide sticking out of them. I came down from the north side, and found three cars parked at the barricade, possibly Thanksgiving visitors to the house at the current road's end. Just beyond that, the big clearing on the northwest side is no longer a mystery: I understand now they're constructing a loop for traffic to turn around, since it's no longer able to cross the bridge. I was a bit surprised to see the bridge still standing; I thought it might have been pulled down already as part of the work. But I suppose if the waterworks aren't completed yet, the bridge is still needed. I wonder if they'll tear it down immediately once that infrastructure's in place and the stuff slung under the bridge is superfluous, or if taking the bridge down will be a separate contract to be undertaken at a later date. Ideally I'd like to get some shots of the bridge while it's been taken down, but without knowing when that will be, I know it will only be by unlikely good luck that I'll get any such shots. More likely I'll show up one weekend with the missing bridge a fait accompli.

It's my intention to post at least a few of the shots this evening as contrast with the ones I've posted before, so if you see this before they're here, and you care at all, check back later. :) Again, the shots were taken with the W3, which as I indicated an a previous post I find myself depending on more and more as my "camera of record" on such excursions because it captures the view in three dimensions and with pretty good quality (the video abilities of the W3 in particular are a huge, huge improvement over the previous W1... gee, was there ever a W2, by the way?).

I should probably take a couple of evenings and work together a post about the various roads and odd little rural quirks of Rouge Park. I also need to make sure I've kept the project files as up-to-date as they should be... make sure all the photos are in there, and geotag and keyword-process them. Boy, that takes time. The one bright spot in that is that Fuji finally released a utility to cut and even merge/transition the 3D AVI files its W1 and W3 cameras produce; something I've been waiting for literally for years. For instance, I was finally able to trim down a long dashboard video that included a bit about the (former) level crossing on Sheppard Avenue that I just couldn't include before because it came in the middle of a much longer trip, and as such would only have confused anyone who saw it in the future. So, recently I was able to extract just the pertinent section and put that into the folder. Thank you, Fuji. :)

Justin Time

This week saw the announcement by Justin Trudeau that he will seek the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. Nearly defunct after the beating it took in last year's federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada, long referred to only slightly ironically as "the natural governing party of Canada" was in power more often than not in the 145 years since Confederation. Now it's not even the Official Opposition, and that's a historic low for the party.

In recent decades, the Liberal Party has given Canada our own national flag; the elimination of any ethnic or racial consideration in the immigration process and its broad expansion; socialized medicine, which is now a sacrosanct birthright from coast to coast to coast; the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults; the end of capital punishment; and the patriation of the British North America Act as the Constitution Act, 1867, and with it the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that has become another defining characteristic of Canadian identity over the past 30 years. With the exception of the first two items on the list, these were all policies brought to Canadian life by Pierre Elliot Trudeau, either as Minister of Justice in under Prime Minister Lester Pearson, or as the prime minister himself, from 1968-1979, and again from 1980-1984 after the collapse of Joe Clark's short-lived minority Tory government.

Pierre Trudeau was prime minister most of my life while I was growing up. For people my age and a decade or so either side, he looms large... larger than life. He essentially vanished from the public eye after his resignation in 1984, but when he did speak out, on Meech Lake or the Charlottetown Accord, the nation's attention was focused on him like a laser, even after a decade out of sight. When he died in September, 2000, I felt like the man who was the real Prime Minister of Canada, even after 16 years in retirement, was gone. I wonder how many others felt that way.

It was at this point that another Trudeau came to prominence... his eldest son, Justin, who delivered his eulogy. And I think, in some way, since this moment, in the back of its collective mind, this country has been waiting for the moment Justin would take up the mantle his father set down. I realized I was waiting when I heard he was running for Parliament several years ago. He's currently the member for a Montreal riding. By next spring, he could be the Leader of the Liberal Party. In the long run, in three years beyond that, perhaps the Prime Minister.

Being the son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau is both Justin's blessing and his curse. It's his blessing because people rightly see in him the things they saw in his father that got him elected and re-elected over and over. No matter how much he upset them, infuriated them, or confounded them, they never lost their fascination with the man, and that, too, is Justin's inheritance. But it's his curse, too, for two reasons. One is that his father is not universally well-remembered, particularly among Quebec nationalists and Western Canadians who remember his National Energy Program and confrontations with wheat farmers with a bad taste that lingers to this day. The other is that it means that Justin has before him a very narrow line to walk: one that appeals to the fascination in which this country continues to hold his father as one of the most exceptional people ever to called a Canadian; and the need to distance himself from that legacy, and be his own man. His father's son, yes; but not his father's living shadow.

Brian Mulroney, who was himself prime minister from 1984 to 1993, had some kind things to say about Justin in the past week, which was generous considering Mulroney was Pierre Trudeau's political rival. Mulroney cautioned the Tories and the NDP not to underestimate Justin, saying that his father was a formidable opponent, and that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree". It strikes me that this is both praise and a warning... either to Justin himself, or to those whom his father rubbed the wrong way should the observation be lost on Justin.

Justin made the right move out of the gate. His first stop after announcing his intention to run was in Calgary, Alberta... a city that scarcely exists on the map of the Liberal Party of Canada. There he made the very conscious move of announcing that he would not use the wealth of some parts of Canada as a wedge issue to gain votes elsewhere. It hardly needs to be said that he was speaking of Alberta, rich with oil, in the former reference, and Ontario and Quebec, rich with voters and over half the seats in the House of Commons between them, in the latter.

He's made no bold promises yet, nor should he, with half a year to go before the convention. He's recognized that furvor over his candidacy will soon fade, as it should. The last thing he needs is for people to be tired of him before the balloons even get blown up and the streamers hung. I expect he'll keep his face in the news at occasional key moments, attending the right functions, saying the appropriate things here and there, but keeping his cards to his chest till the convention. Let's be honest... Justin Trudeau is, for all intents and purposes, running against himself. His coronation as leader of the Grits next spring is pretty short odds. His challenge will be presenting himself as a bold alternative to the government and the Official Opposition, and maintaining the fire long enough to parlay that into taking up residence in 24 Sussex Drive and for years beyond, or risk becoming the greatest coulda-shoulda-woulda in Canadian political history.

Good luck, Justin. We've been waiting, and we'll be watching.

16th Avenue bridge... in 3D!

As indicated last week, the deck's been completed across the creek. What I was finally able to see was the strange spectacle of the old Bailey bridge now completely covered by the new one. Except possibly at sunset during mid-summer, the Bailey bridge that has stood under the sky since probably the mid-1950s will never see direct sunlight ever again.

Clicking on these images should bring up slightly larger versions. If you're prepared to cross your eyes a little, you should be able to see the views in three dimensions. The images were shot with the Fuji W3, a display model I bought used from a camera store in Buffalo last winter. I've been making increasing use of this camera and while it's not my daily haul-around camera (that's the Canon S100), I'd have to say it's now my go-to camera for recording things I want to eventually offer to the provincial archives. 3D cameras will soon enough be the norm, but just for now, I'm an early adopter who'll leave posterity views they couldn't otherwise have, and that's important to me in doing this at all.

American Werewolves

As previously stated, one of the disks I bought on the weekend is An American Werewolf in London. I bought it principally because I like the movie, but the real selling point was that it featured a commentary track by the two American actors, David Naughton, who plays David, the central character, and Griffin Dunne, who plays Jack, his friend who is killed and keeps returning to warn him.

The commentary track is everything a commentary track should be: witty, affectionate, informative, fascinating in its details about the rigors of movie-acting, a little bit earthy, and leaves you wanting more. For instance... hints of an unrequited crush on co-star Jenny Agutter (who played Alex the nurse); discussions of how tedious and involved the make-up process was; and the startling and amusing revelation that the scenes in the London Zoo in which David is streaking were shot during regular hours when the zoo was open to the general public... these among others.

If you like the movie and you get a chance to see it with this enhancement, go for it. :)

In days of yore, from Britain's shore...

Something else that's been in the news lately is that there's a plan in the wind for Canada to start sharing diplomatic digs with Britain. It's not just a story here; I've seen it written up in The Guardian in Britain as well. This policy is to be undertaken, at least at first, in countries where "one of the nations does not have an embassy", so we're talking about fairly small countries that have not been afforded either a Canadian or a British embassy. No big deal.

There's been some negative response to this. The Globe and Mail, here in Toronto, has wondered if this is a return to the colonial past. Paul Heinbecker, one of our former ambassadors to Germany, has said that "We have an incompatible brand with the UK," pointing to differences on Bosnia and apartheid in South Africa, as well as our perception in the Middle East. On the on hand, it's been pointed out that Britain and Canada already have this kind of thing going on at an ad hoc level in two or three places, and that Britain has similar arrangements with both France and Germany. And while that may all be true, on the other hand, France and Germany don't have the kind of imperial history with Britain that Canada does, and everything that that implies in the world.

Canada has spent a long time slowly emerging from the shadow of Britain in particular. We've only been fully equal and diplomatically independent since the 1920s; we didn't retire the Union Jack from its place on the national flag until 1965; technically we still had to bother the British Parliament to amend our constitution for us until 1982 (which was embarrassing for us and zero-value legislative pain in the ass chore for them). Officially, our head of state is still designated by an act of British law that we and 15 other countries, including the UK, are mutually bound to and can only change by unanimous consent (such as the long-overdue proposed change, currently in the works, to allow the first born of whichever sex to succeed, instead of the oldest boy). Lately, the federal government has resurrected the official names of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy that were quietly retired back around the time I was born. It all adds up to something I'm a little uncomfortable with, despite the fact that's it's largely in sync with my own heritage.

I keep wondering, for instance, if Canadians would be as blase about the suggestion that we were about to start sharing embassies with the United States. I think Canadians would get up on their high horse about our independence on the world stage in that case. But in this case, not so much. It should be a concern. It was a Canadian, Lester Pearson, who created the concept of UN peacekeeping forces in response to the Suez Crisis. And yet, Egyptian president Abdel Nasser refused to have Canadian troops among them. He pointed to the Canadian flag at the time, the Red Ensign (below; 1921-1957 green leaf version), which featured the Union Jack in the canton and a coat of arms in the fly making specific references to England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, and said—with good reason—that Canada was suspect as a neutral party. Given that two of the countries Nasser was fighting, Britain and France, were the founding European countries of modern Canada, that was arguably a good call regardless of what our flag looked like. But the point is, symbols are chosen for a reason: they mean something. What is Canada saying to the world in first of all being too poor to represent itself anywhere it chooses to, and secondly, flying the Maple Leaf beside the Union Jack again? What is that saying to Canadians who aren't of British heritage? To new Canadians from other backgrounds? To francophone Canadians in general, and in particular, to Quebec?

Dances with Leaves

Well, it's that time of year again. Early; too early, I think. Not the usual end-of-summer lament but a real sense of we're-being-short-changed. The last few weeks have been unseasonably cool and the weekends have been more like mid-fall than late summer. The usual soaks in the Humber to be had at the end of September were not in the offing this year.

I didn't get back to shoot 16th Avenue yesterday because instead, I went trail hiking with P-Doug. We'd talked about it last week but it had never really jelled; we kind of decided to go with it. I was happy for the excuse to get out. We went up the closed section of Huntingdon Road again, which is generally how we've come to open and close out the main hiking season... you know, where it's "shorts" weather. Yesterday could have been shorts weather, but only just; as it was, I was in jeans and a jean jacket. It was still comfortable enough for me to take the hike in bare feet, but it won't be for too many more weeks. Depending on the weather and schedules, that might be it for feeling the forest beneath me as I wander through it for this year, but we'll see. The first frost that sets in usually leaves behind it a ground temperature clammy enough to be uncomfortable, and if you're not going to enjoy it, there's not much point.

Generally when we close out the main hiking season on Huntingdon, the leaves have turned a uniform gold in there. It's almost unbelievable; it's almost like being in an impressionist painting or landing on another planet. I've posted shots on the blog elsewhere. Given that the leaves here in town are turning already and how cool it's been, I more than half-expected that kind of scene when we were there. But no; Huntingdon's still fairly green. The cool weeks don't seem to have unduly rushed the trees along the Humber.

The hike we follow generally takes us about half way along the closed section, where we carve off at the very tip of the ridge over the river valley and follow a deer trail. Up and down a few hills over a forest carpeted with soft red pine needle sheddings over moist soil. It seems to me that wandering it shod in warm weather is to rob yourself of half the experience of it; it makes no more sense than doing pottery with winter gloves on. We made our way to the heights to a spot a number of us enjoy where the trees end beside what must once, and not so long ago, have been a farmer's field. I've got an old shower curtain I spread out so we don't get dirty and for a while can just sit there and listen to the breezes in the treetops and luxuriate in the comparative stillness and warmth of the air at ground level, with the sun streaming through the branches and dappling everything... knowing that in a few weeks it'll be a memory again till April or so.

When it started to cloud over and we started musing if the rain we thought we'd dodged might arrive anyway, we packed up. Besides, by then we were fairly hungry, so we did the 20-minute wander back to his car and headed into Bolton, debating whether to go to the Toby Jug or the Black Bull. The Black Bull's a nice place right in the very heart of the 19th century heart of Bolton, and the food there is impressive, and for not much money. But it had been most of the year since we'd last been at the Toby Jug, so we went there. Since P-Doug's been doing a lot of the driving on our treks lately I promised to pick up the tab. I had the French beef dip, which they seem to have updated and was great, along with the house salad and their balsamic dressing. I think he had a Reuben but I wasn't paying close attention. We were discussing one of the new books I bought this week, the one by John Sewell, and I'll probably post my musings about it here when I've had a chance to absorb most of it.

We also stopped at the dying Blockbuster in town where they're selling off movies and toys and books... it's hard to see; Blockbuster pretty much pulled out of Canada a year or two ago. I picked up number of movies on the cheap... The Chocolate War, An American Werewolf in London (I bought it because the two Americans from the movie have a commentary track), A Serious Man, and... something else that escapes me at the moment but I've wanted to see for a while... and finally, for ten bucks, season one of The Bill Cosby Show. This is not The Cosby Show from the 80s; this is a show he did at the end of the 60s, where he plays a high school teacher; inner-city, I expect. I haven't watched it yet, but it's a buy for three reasons: I've been a fan of Bill Cosby's since I found my parents' copy of Why Is There Air? when I was seven; it was just ten dollars and it's a whole season; and I'll be fascinated to see what the vibe was in 1969-1970. The only thing I can claim to remember from 1970 is my dad's yellow Oldsmobile sitting in the driveway. Well, that and sticking a key repeatedly into a wall outlet until a big green bolt literally shot me half way across the living room. Oh, and splitting my forehead open on the edge of a TV set. ...Geez, it's a wonder I made it to 1971.

That turned out a little longer than I expected. Basically I was just making a journal entry for future me; the kind of thing I used to be good at and has been of value to me in the past for placing things in context. I suppose it's still that but it's more expansive than I anticipated. :) Anyway next weekend is a long weekend, so hopefully I can get some shots of the new bridge for the archive. Looked to me like it will be open sometime this autumn. Remarkable when I remember that when I was there in August it was still just abutments that didn't in any way connect, and a little Bailey bridge pretty much hanging in mid-air from both ends.

Marking time

Sitting here it occurred to me to check where I was with regard to Twinkle at this time last year. A year ago right now, I was aware she wasn't feeling well, but I was still a few days away from being aware of the extent of it. I'll never know how long she'd actually been sick at that point. What I can say is that most of a decade of fairly uninterrupted happiness with my various cats had drawn to a close.

Anyway. I just mention that as a milestone. My real intention this afternoon had to be nicely update you on the progress on the 16th Avenue bridge. I was out with Michelle this afternoon... she's lost over 40 pounds so far and she looks terrific... genuinely younger. She'd also just gotten her hair done. She was a real prize. We got caught up at The Khan in Don Mills, and from there, I headed out to photograph the bridge. Half an hour's drive later, I arrive there to see a half dozen workers still busy on what appears to be a finished span. There was no point in getting out of the car; I wasn't just free to wander around. I got a couple of shots from the window. I'm considering going back out tomorrow to see if I can do any better. In the meantime, well, here's what I was able to snag.

Wow, already?

A flier from last week, snagged at a watering hole I and some of my friends favour called The Goose.

I'm intrigued by the mention of "Irish Car Bombs". I expect it's a drink of some kind, albeit one with a somewhat insensitive name. :) And while admitting I've been on the wagon for going on two years now, I can't say I consider $6 for a pint much of a bargain or incentive to pound 'em back, even "tax included".

Still... funny enough. :)

P.S. Oh, and guys... it's "Paddy", not "Patty". That'd be his sister.

Due to be stacked in the bathroom soon :)

In my local wanderings over the years I’ve tended to focus on roads and bridges that used to be part of the public space and no longer are... no longer are part of the public space, or no longer are, period. I’ve long been fascinated with the long-lost pony truss one-laner that used to carry Lawrence Avenue traffic across the East Don. That it persisted for around a decade after the Don Mills development sprawled half a mile west of it fascinates me and I wish I knew what that was like for the people who moved in there. In any event, it was superseded by the current six-lane span at the time the Don Valley Parkway pushed north to devour the right-of-way of Woodbine Avenue, and the little bridge itself must have been removed at that time. Why the city didn’t simply leave it I can’t say; perhaps because it had a wooden deck it was assumed it would quickly become a hazard to incidental hikers.

Max's rose

Good-bye, Max's rose...

I've had a rose plant on my dresser since sometime last spring. Periodically it brings forth a bud or two. The last was in mid-August. It was coming to my attention while I was tending to Max, when I hoped he only had a bad infection. It fully bloomed the morning of the day I had to take him in to put him to sleep. I remember thinking of it, sadly, before I even had to face that inevitability, as that the rose was blooming to mark his passing. Now, I know that's foolish. Nevertheless, it's our lot as humans to make associations that aren't there.

About a week ago, it had faded and dried on the plant. Some time earlier this year a friend advised me that one had to cut them off for something else to grow. So, hard as it was, I did. I looked at it for a moment and put it in the waste paper basket. About ten minutes ago, I dumped the basket. Again, I regarded the rose. It was hard to throw it out a second time. I even pressed my lips to it. But it was gone, and I had to let it go. Max's rose.

I guess there's a lesson there. An analogy. It still kind of sucks, though.

Feline retrospectives

Looking back at the blog for reference, I can see that we're coming up on a year now since the last week I would have considered everything normal with the three cats I moved into my new place with. Twinkle was probably already sick by this time last year, but she wasn't showing it yet; or if she was, I wasn't picking up on it.

I've been mulling it over lately as to why Twinkle's death was so much harder than Max's, at least on me. I mean, even with Twinkle, I didn't really come apart. I don't think I ever really cried; I got misty a few times but it never overwhelmed me. Still, it was rough, and strangely, even though Max isn't even gone a month yet, I still find her passing somehow harder to take. I had Max nearly ten years; he was a prince, and he's only been gone about three weeks. Twinkle I had a year and a half; she was no prize, and she's gone nearly a year. You'd think my feelings would be reversed.

I guess it has to do with conjunctions of the natures of their passing, their characters, and their lives.

Both of them were given up at some point. Max, formerly "Morris", was given up at about the age of two. I don't think he was in the shelters long when I got him. He was easygoing, really liked human beings, hardly ever got mad, and was really enthusiastic about life. Even when he had cancer, I didn't know a thing till it got rough for him to eat. All the time he was chipper, seemed comfortable enough, got around, hopped up on things, was affectionate, pretty much up to the day he died. Pretty much the only reason I took him in to be euthanized was that he was very clearly experiencing bouts of real pain he couldn't hide anymore, and that was quickly overshadowing the enjoyment he was getting out of being alive. But he was only briefly homeless, he had ten good years with me, and he was fairly sound right up to the end.

Twinkle was a whole other ball of wax. The records show she was in the shelter for a while before we picked her up. She had a history of investigations into her urinary tract, and I suspect she was a troubled cat who lost more than one home. She absolutely ruined my futon and a number of smaller, soft items while I had her, though she largely settled down before I moved. She wasn't all that cuddly; she was affectionate strictly on her own terms and schedule, and she had no issues with putting me in my place if she felt the need. But if there was ever a cat who needed someone like me, it was Twinkle. I had some pretty dark thoughts sometimes about her little habits, but I never gave up on her. She would have had a good home for a long time, if only.

I thought she didn't even know her name. I think the only indication I ever had otherwise was when she was sick and took to hiding, and I roamed around calling for her. She finally meowed to me from the wardrobe I have in the dining room. Up on the shelf above is where her ashes are now, along with Max's, Jenny's, and some of my friend Jody's.

Max got to live out his last few weeks at home. He was probably in pain a lot of the time, but not so much that he showed it, or it really kept him from enjoying his life, such as it was. Twinkle, on the other hand, spent most of her last two weeks in a hospital, away from home, feeling abandoned again, I'm sure, except for my visits. She was sick, she had no energy or strength, no appetite, she was full of tubes and was constantly being injected or having blood drawn or infused. She went through hell; that poor little thing went through hell. And for nothing, as it turned out. But we sure tried for her. And she endured it.

Max died looking calmly into my eyes as his consciousness softly pinched off. Twinkle died thrashing and fighting for breath in a litter box, with me beside her, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing I could do for her. That little thing never, ever got a break in life. She had a few arguably good months among strangers, human and feline, that she eventually got to know and (I hope) trust, before everything was taken away from her in nausea, fear, loneliness, and torment. And that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

And that's the way it is.

The sadness of tuna

Lunch time. Today represents the first day I've had tuna since Max died. The old bachelor cupboard's pretty bare at the moment so if I weren't going to actually buy lunch today, it pretty much required the opening of a can of tuna, something I've been avoiding.

There were six cans in the cupboard, the remnants of the ten I bought Tuesday three weeks ago, after Max was given the appetite stimulant the night before and ate most of the two cans of tuna I had left, all in one evening. He and the other cats, mostly him, managed another four of the ten new cans in the handful of days he actually turned out to have left to him. The other six have just sat since them.

Till this morning.

It was  a sad thing, for the first time in pretty much ten years, to open a can of tuna and not have the sound of it, the alluring waft of it, result in the appearance of Max at my feet, with his plaintiff, beseeching "oww... oww... ow..." Being bothered by Max was one of the secret joys of opening a can of tuna. As it turned out, this time Ally showed up, perched on the counter behind me, doing pretty much the same thing. In a way, it was nice consolation; in another way, it made me even sadder. Life goes on. Feels like, somehow, it shouldn't. But it does.

Loved and lost

When I was in high school I dated a girl who was "the one". She was pretty much the first of everything. She was smart, pretty, and intellectually precocious, and the three years between us seemed hardly to matter. As time passed, they really didn't matter at all. In university, I starting making plans in the back of my mind for our life together. It wasn't to be. She moved on. In some ways, I never quite did.

In some ways, neither has my country.

The Globe and Mail is this morning announcing one the sillier ideas I've seen mooted on the pages of a newspaper of record: that some folks are seriously proposing the resurrection of the Avro Arrow. It's hard for me to really frame what this plane means in this country to anyone who's not from here. Over the years its reputation has snowballed into something little short of Excalibur. It was going to be the greatest fighter-interceptor in the world; it could have lifted small manned capsules into suborbital spaceflights; it would have this, it would have that. Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that the Diefenbaker government scrapped the made-in-Canada program in 1959, destroying all the test planes, the plans, the engines. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker gave natives residing on reservations the vote, fought hyphenated citizenship, and gave the country the Canadian Bill of Rights (a "quasi-constitutional" document not to be confused with the constitutionally-entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms), but what he's primarily remembered for is killing the Avro Arrow.

What can I say? A few years ago at the Royal Ontario Museum, there was a travelling display of Canadiana. Among other things I saw with my own eyes, along with one of the original signed copies of the Charter encased in helium, was a preserved landing gear of an Arrow, hidden away during the destruction. And it was a little like seeing Excalibur, and going, wow, it was really real.

There were consequences for this country. The cancellation of the Arrow was the effective death of an independent Canadian aviation industry, at least until Bombardier picked up that fallen standard in recent years. Canadian engineers, designers, and pilots fled to the US for work. A lot of them were instrumental in putting a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. Many people to this day insist John Diefenbaker sold Canada out to American interests, or even was pressured by the Pentagon to abandon a made-in-Canada defence solution; and, as I say, he's never really been forgiven for it. Sad to say, that's been his legacy. Maybe rightly so.

Now, all that said... to sit here in 2012 and see people seriously suggest building a plane, designed in the late 1950s for use into the 1970s, in the 2010s for use into the 2030s... well, it's one of those comedy face-twitch moments. Yeah, and if I give myself a decent enough comb-over, maybe I can get the girl from high school and we'll start that family we never had. Come on, folks. I know the Arrow was homemade maple fudge ice cream, legalized marijuana, and seven-minute multiple orgasms all rolled into one, but it would have been half way through its service life when I was born. Let's not do this to ourselves all over again. It was what it was, and it never was what it was. It never will be, because it's never going to be 1965 again. I'm all for an aviation industry in Canada that's capable of designing and building a decent fighter-interceptor that suits our needs, mission goals, and our environment—while at the same time, we recognize and purchase good ideas made by other countries as well. Every country should aspire to something like that, I think. But if we're going to do it, let's go back to the drawing board and use what we've learned since 1960. Any technological industry with its focus set backward is a non-starter.

At long last, let's bid a fond, respectful adieu to the Arrow.