TriumphAnt

Peculiar road habits…

We spent several hours of this year’s Easter weekend on the road between Ottawa and Hamilton. Along the way I repeated what has become, since Lord knows when, a personal tradition. At Oshawa, there’s a brief stretch of the 401 where the highway takes a dip and passes beneath three street bridges in very close proximity to one another. And travelling at a breath or two over 120 km/h, you can pass under all three bridges in a grand total of eight seconds flat. Exactly. Since time immemorial (or more accurately, since 120 km/h became pretty well the standard velocity for travelling the 401), I have started a count of “one thousand… two thousand… three thousand…” either out loud or to myself and always manage to hit the hard “d” at the end of “eight thousand” at the precise moment the far side of bridge three rips past my sightline above the windshield. Passing the “eight second bridges” has been, without fail, a part of every drive to and from Ottawa for as long as I can remember. (Or at least as long as I have been driving the 401 @ 120km/h.)

Many, many years ago, when my Dad piloted the family car as we drove from Perth to visit my aunt and uncle and their family in Belleville, we would always stop at Actinolite. It’s a tiny town which still stands at the intersection of Highways 7 and 37, the latter being the road south through Tweed to Belleville. But for several years, roadside at Actinolite, there stood a cage, elevated on a concrete platform, in which resided a black bear with an insatiable love of Coca Cola. The cage had been erected beside a restaurant and, to make things easier for people who just wanted to stop and greet the bear, the owners had placed a vending machine that dispensed glass bottles of Coke. It was a never-ending break-up-the-drive delight for me and my brother to have Dad spring for a bottle, then allow each of us to take a turn tilting it bottom-up through the massive steel bars on the cage while the bear would gulp it down.

From today’s perspective as an adult, I realize now it was a pretty wretched life for such a wonderful animal. The cage was not huge and if it provided any shelter at all for the bear, it was in a minimal structure about the size of a large doghouse tucked into one corner. And given the number of bottles of Coke he must have had poured into him on a typical weekend of meeting the travelling public, I also suspect his dentition would eventually have left him unable to manage anything chewier than porridge. But we were kids, he was a big shambling black bear, and he loved the Coke that we passed him through the bars of his cage. I don’t think we ever made the Perth to Belleville run without stopping for a “Coke-bear break” at Actinolite for as long as that bear resided there.

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Recently, I was out with a small group of good friends at what we try to arrange monthly as a “Boys’ Night Out” (BNO). One conversation opener was the news that, the previous day, the Ontario Provincial Police had pulled over and checked 25 randomly selected cars with toddler restraint seats for the way in which the seats had been installed. No fewer than 24 had the seats installed incorrectly.

The BNO gang started reminiscing about our own experiences installing these things and, without exception, we agreed that each and every one of us had probably installed the seats officially wrong. But in all cases, our thus-restrained children were nonetheless fully restrained within the seats and their harnesses. In my case, I recall our seat-backed anchor strap was not bolted down to a fixed point mounted by means of a hole drilled into my car (which is how the instructions tell you to do it) – it was secured by the nylon-webbed strap’s being wound around the rear headrest post and tied with a knot that would have tested even Lord Robert Stephenson Smythe Baden-Powell of Gilwell.

That led us to start musing along the lines of, “Just how on earth did we ever manage to get to where we are today?” when we all grew up without the countless government regulations and Canadian Standards Association guidelines governing everything from the allowable gap between bars in our cribs to the sugar content line at which nutritious fruit “juice” becomes the toxic, life-threatening fruit “drink”.

I found a similar line of thought in an online discussion about the complexity of some US Congressional regulations:

“Considering we were a nation for nearly 200 years before Congress started protecting us against ‘unreasonable risks of injuries and deaths,’ a natural question is how we managed to survive and grow from a population of 4 million to the 280 million of us today. According to my e-mail's author, if we listen to Washington, those of us still around who were children during the '40s, '50s and '60s probably should be dead. Nonetheless, there are 58 million of us born in 1945 or earlier who are still kicking. Our parents allowed us to sleep in cribs beautified with lead-based paint. They drove us around in cars that had neither seatbelts nor airbags. They permitted us to ride our bicycles without helmets, just as adults rode motorcycles without helmets. And, horror of horrors, there were no childproof medicine bottles that, by the way, are sometimes so difficult to open that some people summon their children to open them.”

One of our BNO guys actually recalled falling out of the family car one day when Dad took a corner just a little too sharply. (Boys being boys, whatever the age, the rest of concluded, “Well that certainly explains a lot!”)

Where am I going with this particular bit of rambling, you wonder? Right here:

At my father-in-law’s home in the law-abidingly-named “Ancaster Police Village”, they have recently instituted a new classification of garbage pick-up that is chock-a-block with rules and regulations: the Green Cart. And I foresee it will soon be nothing but trouble.

Recently, every residence in the community received a great big plastic green garbage bin on wheels. It stands about four feet tall, and comes equipped with a swing-open lid. On arrival, a smaller, in-house version was tucked into the bigger one like a baby in a womb, along with an accompanying book of instructions. The offspring was for use, I assume, on the kitchen counter where such waste typically is generated.

Oh, what means: “such waste”, you ask? Happy to oblige. (By now you’re starting to see how this blog comes into being. I talk to all my imaginary friends and they ask me questions, which I answer here. Some days, my room here at the special hospital is so full of imaginary visitors that it’s all I can do to get the friendly staff to give me enough crackers to at least be able to offer everyone something to eat. But I digress again. My imaginary friend Conrad is telling me to get back to the story.)

Anyway, from the Green Cart’s very own website, here’s the complete list of what is supposed to go into it:

“Food Waste: Baked goods; Bone; Bread; Butter and margarine; Cake; Candy; Cereal; Cheese; Coffee filters and grounds; Cookies; Corn cobs and husks; Dairy products; Eggs and eggshells; Fish and fish parts; Flour; Fruit; Grains; Gravy and sauces; Grease / lard / fat; Herbs and spices; Jams and jellies; Mayonnaise; Meat and meat products; Nuts and nut shells; Oatmeal; Pasta; Peanut butter; Pizza; Popcorn; Pumpkins; Rice; Salads; Shellfish; Sugar; Syrup; Tea bags; Vegetables; Watermelon; Yogurt.

Paper products: Paper bags; Facial tissues; Freezer paper; Greasy pizza boxes; Microwave popcorn bags; Paper napkins / plates / cups; Paper towels; Waxed Paper.

Other Items: Dryer lint; Feathers; Hair; Houseplants; Leaf and yard waste; Nail clippings; Pet Hair; Popsicle sticks; Sawdust (in paper bags); Toothpicks; Wood ashes (cold – in paper bags); Wood chips.

Remember, absolutely no plastics in the Green Cart!”

Now there are still parts of Ancaster where they post yellow diamond-shaped signs advising you to keep an eye out for deer crossing the road. (And I have a trio of amazing memories connected with that: 1. a Christmas Eve walk where, at one point, we were strolling up a gently sloping street. As we neared the crest, we were suddenly confronted by the silhouettes of some eight to ten deer as they silently crossed the street a scant ten to 15 yards ahead; 2. the morning several years ago when we all woke up to find that a doe had decided to take her ease and lie down smack in my in-laws’ large backyard. She stayed long enough to allow us to take a few photos and admire her. Then she gently rose and ambled off somewhere else; and 3. another day when two rambunctious fawns, who looked large enough to probably be called teenagers, but still were possessed of their young coat dappling, were rambling around inside the yard along its tree line. With them, we played a gentle game of almost-tag. Get close, watch them bounce away among the trees, watch us as we got close again, bounce off again… several times until they decided it was time to move along to an adjacent yard to continue their explorations.)

In other words, there are still parts of Ancaster that are not that far removed from being more rural than urban. In recent years, it’s undergone an enormous residential build-up, but deer are still occasionally spotted, and raccoons abound. So take a look at that above list of Green Cart disposables again, especially the first paragraph, and take a minute to put yourself in the mindset of a raccoon.

Does the word, “buffet” (or whatever loose combination of sounds a raccoon might make to convey that thought) come to mind? Cause it should. Good heavens, the program even asks you to provide the napkins with which they can clean their little furry faces after chowing down on the contents of your Green Cart!

Its lid is no deterrent at all. It doesn’t, for example, lock but it is hinged and just swings over the cart’s large square opening to sit atop it. However, the Green Cart service website does have this helpful advice:

“The best places to store your cart ‘are in your garage or shed, or outside away from decks, stairs, walls or railings so that animals do not have any leverage to help them get in. Using a bungee cord tied over the lid (from the lips on each side of the cart) or a heavy object (brick or large rock) on the top of your green cart will also help.’”

All of which sounds wonderfully sensible and practical and maybe even workable, but at this point in the Green Cart planning meeting, the environmentalists must have gotten up en masse and gone to the bathroom, because a complete and utter fool appears to have hijacked the planning process: “Remember, bungee cords or any objects on top of your green cart MUST be removed before collection.”

Raccoons are not stupid creatures, as anyone will attest who has ever grappled with them in your attic or even among your garbage in what you thought were raccoon-proof containers. And if there’s a relatively simple way, or even a complicated way, to crack The Da-Liddy Code, you can pretty well count on a raccoon’s being able to figure it out.

But the Ancaster program actually requires that you unlock your lid, peel away the shock cords, or even lift the heavy brick off, before the poor but obviously powerfully unionized garbage collectors have to confront the apparently insurmountable inconvenience of doing it themselves. How many people, I wonder, will find themselves in the position of removing their lid fasteners early in the morning en route to work – hours, in some cases, before the garbage pick-up takes place on their street? (This brings us back to why the Green Cart says “buffet” in the mind of a raccoon.)

Plus when you factor in that this thing – the container – stand some four feet tall and measures about 16 – 20 inches on a side, wheels or no wheels it’s going to be a pain to hose out every week after the fastidious tuxedo-clad white-gloved garbage collectors have passed through the neighbourhood, deigning to allow your refuse to be added to the contents of their truck.

So not only don’t I think this program is going to work, I think it’s going to be a toss-up as to what complaint first makes it into the “Council Highlights” column of the community newspaper: the stench of a growing number of less-than-well-cleaned Green Carts on a hot August afternoon, or a blisteringly irate resident who one too many times had to clean up “buffet” debris that was raccoon-strewn along the street for fully half the length of his property’s frontage.

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Regular readers will recall that, occasionally, bits of official work-related messages will turn up here, along with an accompanying observation from me that reflects my (a) confusion; (b) frustration; or sometimes, (c) complete and utter befuddlement (a.k.a. “WHAT the hell were they thinking?!”)

This one is a category (a). I’m confused. Recently I received this in my e-mailbox at work:

“Invitation to the first Interdepartmental Visible Minorities Symposium

You are cordially invited to the first Interdepartmental Visibly Minorities Symposium, on Wednesday, May 3rd, starting at 8:00 a.m. at the Cadieux Auditorium, Lester B. Pearson Building, 125 Sussex Drive. The symposium is hosted by the Visible Minorities Committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the National Council of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service of Canada.

As Canadians, we pride ourselves in our country’s ethnic diversity. Diversity makes us stronger as a country. As members of the public service, we constantly strive for employment equity in the workplace. In accordance with this, the themes of the symposium will be Employment Equity and Diversity and the Public Service Modernization Act.

The symposium is open to all employees in the public service who agree to maintain a scent-free environment throughout the day.

For more information, or to confirm your attendance, please contact (a non-Anglo-Saxon name).”

No, it’s not the unintentionally hilarious typo “visibly minorities” in line 1. (“You’re not just a minority; you’re visibly a minority!”)

It’s not even the theme of the memo. Visible minorities, employment equity and diversity all touch on laudable goals in the public service. In fact, to my mind, the Day of Jubilation will come when someone uses a term like that in conversation and people tilt their heads in a sort of puzzlement because they work in places where people routinely are employed for reasons of their relevant education, experience and ability to do the work, not because they’re a “visible minority” or because the department has actually had to be ordered to observe “employment equity” and “diversity” in its hiring criteria. Because when you hire based on experience and ability, you’re going to get equity and diversity by default. But I digress.

No, what puzzled me most about that invitation is this line: “open to all employees in the public service who agree to maintain a scent-free environment throughout the day”.

Can anyone tell me why I am apparently being asked to be an advocate of a “scent-free [workplace] environment” before I’ll be accepted at a visible minorities symposium?

And can anyone tell me how this invitation is NOT saying either, “Hey: visible minorities: you smell” or “Hey, everybody else BUT visible minorities: you smell!”? (Because one or the other of you has to toe the olfactory line before we’ll even let you in the door.)

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For the record, another of my imaginary friends recently asked me to add a comment about where I stand on the great flag debate. It’s like this: I really, really, REALLY resent the fact that the people we elect, and the wailing members of the fifth estate, have decided to use the return to Canada of four caskets containing the bodies of Canadian soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan as the hook upon which to hang their political commentaries. Scoring points by burying the tragedy and its accompanying solemnity under a torrent of sleazy histrionics has, if such were possible, even further eroded my respect for those who would claim the right to lead us.

That’s probably not what you wanted to know but, in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that”.

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And finally, recall that in my Grenada ramblings I referred to the street etiquette represented by the incessant use of the car horn. I offer by way of contrast the following:

On a recent walk portion of my daily commute, I was waiting at a busy intersection’s island delta for a break in the traffic. This particular intersection has no pedestrian crossings. Traversing it is supposed to be accomplished by means of a nearby tunnel. The problem is that you have to walk some distance out of your way to get to the tunnel entrance. Then, once out on the other side, you either have to travel even farther out of your way to come back to the sidewalk you left to get to the tunnel in the first place, or you have to hike up a steep, grass-covered slope to get back up onto the sidewalk. (I am sure that hill, in fact, was erected solely for the entertainment value it undoubtedly provides a cluster of hidden city workers who on wet days pass their coffee breaks watching people trying unsuccessfully not to slip and slide all the way back down its slick grass slope.)

The net outcome is that a great many people simply avoid the tunnel and cross on the surface, keeping a careful eye on the array of motor and pedal-powered vehicles being directed by a battery of timed traffic lights either to go straight, or to take one of several possible turns through the intersection.

On this morning, I had already decided that the oncoming tide of cars would require a few seconds’ waiting, so I had turned my head to look elsewhere when I heard a “beep beep”. Now at that intersection, sympathetic motorists will frequently slow down to allow waiting pedestrians to cross. In my case, having turned my head, I heard the horn and concluded that one such sympathetic motorist was saying, “Go ahead, my friend”.

But as I started across and looked up to give my benefactor a wave, I noticed that, in fact, he was just completing the process of giving an adjacent driver the finger – the culmination, I assume, of some exchange that had begun long before both arrived at my intersection. The “beep beep” was to get that driver’s attention. For my part, instead of seeing a driver waiting patiently with a smile and a wave while I crossed in front of him, I was suddenly confronted with a swiftly accelerating grille, to which was attached a car of no small size, coming right at me as the driver was leaning out the window, looking backwards, giving his parting gesture a grand flourish.

I’m not sure he ever did see me. But he might have caught a glimpse of the brief cloud of dust I raised as I suddenly charged through what was left to cross of the intersection. He might even have caught a bit of the four-letter stream of expletives I loudly directed his way as he blew past. But even if he had, I doubt very much he gave a damn.

The moral of the story is obvious. There are two parts to the information conveyed by a car horn – what you hear and what you see. Never, never assume anything about either until the actual evidence of both has been fully assimilated.