The Northwestern  crow is normally a gregarious animal. When I was engaged in writing one day  a broken winged crow walked  up the road path in front of my window.  That waddling bow-legged strut was altered by the broken right wing that dragged on the stones of the path. As I watched,  its walk was slow and deliberate. It knew I thought,  that it was doomed.
        The crow  had a stoic look on its face that said it all. I don't understand the entire multiple complex phrasing of the Northwestern crow,  but I know body language pretty well, and I knew that crow knew, it was walking  into the abyss. It was silent. I never thought I would see it again and put the crow  out of my mind.
          I was working in the orchard two days later and there it was. Still alive and hopping from bush to bush for cover. Hiding to avoid detection from the predators, both its own kind and the raptors. Still doomed. It doesn't seem fair.
         You or I may break an arm or leg and it's usually an inconvenience ;  rarely ever a tragedy, and hardly ever are we doomed. If we were, we would not likely bear our fate with the stoic silence and grim recognition of the injured crow.  Natural justice and Mother Nature. Crows gave no quarter and received none The Northwestern crow should have been chosen as the emblematic bird of British Columbia rather than the awful Stellers Jay.  The crow is a soldier !








      

 The wooden prairie elevators are now an iconic reminder of a special past,  and part of  a way of life when industrial farming was nonexistent. My first summer job when I was 15 was cleaning out the grain dust in the bottom of the bins in the Pool elevator for Bill McClugan, the Pool operator. We lived in the railway station across the tracks from the elevator which also had an attached annex. My brother Ken used to sit in the front office of the station and shoot rats around the annex with his 22 when dad wasn't around. One day he aimed too low, hit the track and the bullet ricocheted through the window. That ended his rat hunting.
     The elevators announced each town in large letters  to those strangers that passed through on the passenger train, a signal to the world that was important to us, even though it was fleeting information as the flyer raced through and about all they saw of us !
       Each elevator had a grated weight scale at the entrance where the grain truck was weighed when full and then again when it was empty. Grain was dumped into the grate;  samples, when dumping, were taken for grading during the dumping and then the grain was carried up to the top of the elevator by elevating buckets to one of the 16 ,80 foot high bins and poured out into the bin selected.  During the time after harvest, when the grain was loaded in boxcars, it was not taken directly from the bottom of the bin. As a consequence, the detritus, rat droppings, chaff and dust settled to the bottom of the bin over the winter and spring to three or five feet deep. It was a dusty job shoveling and cleaning the bins dust out in preparation for the harvest to come.
        That was my first summer job. The material got in your hair, clothes, and nostrils. I was happy with my first paying job,  but I understand why Bill didn't want to do it. I was strong and never got sick. There was no running water in our town so our water had to be carried from the town pump and heated on the stove top. My water in the galvanized tub in the kitchen looked like porridge after the bath each day. I may have acquired a somewhat jaded view of the romance of the prairie grain elevator but many could thank me for the absence of rat droppings dust  in their wheat flour to be.
      
     

In the early 70's my hair was thinning. The pianist was off with the children on a trip and I was having dinner with my parents. My mother said to me that I might look better if I had a permanent wave. At that time I had a few adventuresome colleagues who recently had adopted long curly hair. Big hair in the 70's was becoming a statement for men.
       My mother knew nothing about statements. She just noticed my bald spot. She said she had a friend who did Toni Home Permanents.  "Sure  " I said,  feeling cavalier, " Why not. "  The next day I had my perm. When I was sitting down in my parents home and being worked on , as I looked in the mirror with big curlers in place I realized how much I looked like my mother. My perm worked out pretty well, curly but not too tight. a bit bigger hair, and my  having the appearance of being somewhat risque.
     Some people asked me later if I was having mid-life trouble. George Robson, a senior gynecologist asked, " Are you as horny as you look ?'"  When the pianist got home she was thunderstruck, but amused and reflective. She wasn't sure she should go away too often. I appeared to have made some half-assed attempt to join a youth movement where I probably didn't belong.
       I remembered that the ancient Jews believed Samson's power came from his hair. People may have resented big hair in Samson's time for its supposedly regenerative power and production of singular strength. Certainly Delilah destroyed the power of Samson by having him shorn of his locks.
       I went back after a year to my conventional haircut after my 14 year old grew his hair below his shoulders. Trichotollimalia can strike you when you are careless and thoughtless around your mother, and I was never stronger  or  more popular with my big hair.

William Safire died a while back and the Economist Obituary recorded some of his lexicographical tidbits that I have taken liberty with. He analyzed nabobs, nattering and negativism but didn't include nitpicking. Certainly in politics at the Federal level in Canada today, the opposition, all three of them, are guilty of a certain degree of these elements. I don't think the present government is any less guilty when it was in opposition. In fact all levels of government are guilty of this and the media thrives as a result of all of it. Gloating is good ; schadenfreude is splendid.
       When you are in the business of government or opposition of whatever stripe, it is so easy to fall into the habit of the four N's.  Both the media and the partisans promote them!
       What if, wonder of wonders,  electability were put on the back burner for a period of time in order that the public good may be served by genuine collaborative action on their part. Many have forgotten the true definition of the adjective, "politic".  Sometimes we should trash the noun "politics" , for the adjective. Unfortunately the voting public has been robbed by the hyperbole of the nattering nabobs of nitpicking negativism and joined them. What the Hell !

Possibly the most read book on the Art of Loving was written by Erich Fromm 60 odd years ago and is still unsurpassed as the most sensible and easily understood concept leading to effective and rewarding relationships.  The structure of love based on the four foundational hallmarks  of  Knowledge, Care, Responsibility and Respect is so self-evident that people who think are amazed at the lack of mystery to it all.
      Knowledge means simply the desire to know the object of love in all their aspects in order to meet their needs.
       Care means simply to supply those needs to the best off one's ability.
       Responsibility means consistent and reliable action towards the loved one,  since love is action.
       Respect is accepting the unique nature of the love object.
     The overpowering sensation of love, never of course to be denied, will only last in its best measure if it develops latterly from the foundational hallmarks  That's all there is to it !
      However, easier said and done oh man.  You still have to manage to sort out your own path,  wending through the wreckage of your brain trash that has accumulated over the years that you piled up and accumulated to protect yourself.  You have to learn, as in any other skill you might develop, however imperfectly.
       I used to think that this was far too rational approach to love : a left brain context and purely mechanical,  lacking what we called romance. Let it be known now that love is learned. There is nothing wrong with rational. We weren't given a brain for nothing.