When our mother died and we planned her funeral my brother Ken was elected to do the eulogy because the rest of us more easily cried.  He said in his remembrance that she was famous amongst her friends and acquaintances for her turkey gravy.  We, her family didn't know that. Sure, we knew her turkey gravy was good as we had eaten it many times but we didn't know its fame had known few bounds. Ken also said that she was somewhat less famous, but not much less for her lemon curd tarts and her small soft buns:  there was a small soft titter amongst the funeral crowd at "small soft buns".
     When I married the pianist years ago she made gravy like her mother did. The pianist's mother was a careful cook who followed a recipe exactly and was vigilant to avoid ingredients that could lead to obesity or heart disease.  Her turkey gravy method was to spoon off virtually all of the fat and add pre-mixed flour and water to the turkey brownings, boiled vigorously. The water she used was carefully saved from earlier boiled vegetables with added seasoning. She was clearly ahead of her time.
        My mother on the other hand, to my knowledge never followed a recipe. Her construction of the gravy consisted of adding the dry flour directly to the drippings and the browning without removing any fat. She would stir and scrape this molten mass into a brown , boggy , glob, whereupon she added plain water,  stirred more vigorously, boiling to reduce. She only seasoned with pepper and salt. Of course the flavour of the gravy was from the dressing as well as the turkey and I am not sure what they both added to it.
        Now the pianist is well known for her gravy by the family and has adopted the excellence of both her mentors, She gets rid of a measure of the fat but adds dry flour directly. An amalgam of history. For this we can give, each year, a hearty thanksgiving.











    

 Our family and also our extended families often had Samoyeds for family pets.   The last dog the pianist and I cared for and cared for us was Tika. She was one year old when she came to us and the breeder who owned her sold her because she couldn't breed her  or show her because of a delayed knowledge of  serious eye problems in some of her lineage. She was a beautiful calm animal, alert and bright and careful not to ruffle the fur of our two watchful cats who were less than enthusiastic about a dog and had already killed two canaries.  Tika made friends rapidly with us and ignored the cats. Our life with Tika was incident free for about two years and then they began to happen.
      The photo is Tika at 10, Still hale and hearty but totally blind and with the grandchildren.
        When she was two and our first grandchild was near two they played together in town when Joan was looking after them both. Two two year olds at play and Joan wrote a book of poetry about it that intimated the shepherding nature of Tika that was present even then,  that indicated that Hannah was her charge to be cared for and protected.
         We cottaged on Lotus Island regularly and the pianist changed the furniture in the living room one day and brought in a large organ. When Tika came into the house  from town she ran smack dab into the side of the organ that had hitherto been an empty space.  Then when we were walking down the roadway to the beach and called her to come, 50 pounds  of dog ran down the hill and didn't stop and hit my knee. I couldn't walk. She couldn't see me in time to stop. I had surgery and was off for a couple of weeks
       The vet Claus Andress referred us to the animal ophthalmologist who told us that she was blind. She had severe retinal atrophy. What we didn't want to hear finally started to make sense. One night in town when we were sleeping I heard a sound like a child crying and calling near our swimming pool. I got up and went to the pool deck and she was crying and swimming in the pool and couldn't get out . I jumped in the shallow end and lifted her out. A Samoyed coat in water is like blotting paper. She was heavy. The then tendency to put it down to slip and fall was  in error obviously.
        And other clues were ignored. I was often blamed for moisture on the toilet seat but when she probably had her water dish relocated the toilet never moved and her hairy muzzle dripped a bit on the seat since she didn't know to lift it. When the neighbors Roland and Mimi excavated a pit for a basement extension she failed to notice the hole and fell in and called for help.
       As her condition got worse I observed what I thought was very neurotic tendencies on her part. Out side on the property she wandered into every single area, sniffing, nose down, almost following a pattern.  She seemed enormously preoccupied. It came to me that she was mapping our acreage and Roland's property which flowed into it. There were no fences and she knew nothing about survey stakes. She was using her nose and the pulp of her feet to map the territory.
         She avoided the beach because a blind dog can't protect herself and her lesson came one day when a rough dog chased her down the beach and she couldn't see where she was going. I came down at the noise and yelled at the dog and it ran away. It was just somewhere she couldn't mark.
       She loved the cottage and her territory. When  we left town for the island she knew where we were going. On the highway on the island as we approached the road to the turn off I would always feel a soft muzzle on my right shoulder and with the turnoff the muzzle would nod in pleasure. Her highlight was when our grand children came.
         We  buried her ashes in a beautiful bowl Joan had made for her beside three Douglas Firs notched into the deck she always lay on. She was 12 years old  and most of them blind. but she was failing in the end. When we took her  to Claus Andress for passage  he weeped with us. She was a brave and resourcful loving  little dog.
 

Some years ago I became captivated  by the romance of fly fishing. Casting a dry fly to a rising trout seemed an experience "du jour" for a person of my precious sensibilities. The thought of immersing myself in the wilds of nature, wading a small stream brought home the sense of finesse of it all.
       Accordingly I purchased fly fishing tackle for dry fly fishing including dry flies recommended for our area. Since I had not done any such casting before, having only experienced trolling a wet fly behind a row boat  in the high lakes of the BC interior, I resolved to practise casting on our lawn.  After several weeks of diligent prectise  I was pleased with my progress and no longer wrapped the line around my head or snagged myself in the trousers. I could cast a fair length and hit a modestly small target area.
          For my benefit the pianist and our children arranged a  picnic at a park by the Sooke Rver , a place where trout were known to lurk. Before the meal I donned my wading gear and proceeded out into the stream with my tackle and flies. Resting against a tree in the little park I saw  two farmers in coveralls watching me as I cast to and fro with considerable aplomb. I thought that they were probably admiring my technique. After a time I gave up and concluded it was a poor fishing day and my efforts were unrewarded. I repaired to the family for the picnic.
            As we started to eat, and the sun prepared to go down, we could see little circles forming in the otherwise smooth flowing surface of the river. Then the farmers took off their coveralls and waded into the river where I had vacated. They cast their flies with practised skill hither and yon and left with several trout each. I set aside romance, finesse, an experience "du jour", aplomb, and my precious sensibilities for the time being, though my family was supportive and the picnic delicious. What I learned again is that in most activity of any sort we enter into, timing is everything, or if not everything, at the least, bloody important.


                                                                        

My youngest daughter's first job was Pink Lady at the hospital in Lotus City.  She was 15 years old and by simple persistence talked them into hiring her for the summer despite the age standard: not yet 16 and against the rules . This was 1978 and the nurses still wore white uniforms, and the other classifications were pink ladies, yellow ladies and blue men. Pink ladies were the ward cleaning staff and my daughter felt she belonged because we were hospital people connected by the pianist who worked as a nurse and me on the wards every day.
     An esteemed partner of mine, Dr. G, was admitted to the cardiac ward with a mild heart attack and was being actively investigated on the ward where our pink lady worked. She chatted wit him every day as she cleaned around him and he seemed to be doing well as her nightly report to us noted. One morning I got a distressed phone call from her to tell me he had died. She had been sent by the head nurse to clean up the room where he had been. The bed had been stripped and the side tables emptied.She inquired about doctor G and the nurse replied in a doleful voice that doctor G had "gone". Then the head nurse looked down at her feet and left.
       Body language!  After the pink lady called me I phoned G's wife at home to give solace and invite myself over to commiserate. She said cheerfully that she would love to see me and so would G as he had been discharged. Dr. G was not a goner at that time. Words accompanied by inappropriate body language have the power to mislead. Words that have multiple meanings even more so. In contrast, even in the presence of a completely foreign language, body language will communicate. The face, the hands, the tone, the posture.
, the animation, will usually tell the aware what they need to know. We hear with the eyes as well as the ears. That's the real anatomy lesson.

My parents, my brothers and I lived in small town railway stations for years. They were our home. In the fifties we lived in a station on the mainline of the Canadian National railway and there was a train whistling through every couple of hours day or night. In our little town the trains usually went by at full speed and they whistled twice for the level crossings. 400 yards  and 200 yards from the railway station. The track was about 25 feet from the station, separated by the platform, and our rooms shook when the trains whistled through. Many were very long freight trains and the shaking would be minutes long. The two transcontinental passenger trains both came thundering through at night as well. Over time, we never woke up with the shaking and thundering  noise at night. My mother, who was light sleeper under some circumstances, rarely awoke.
      The station caretaker came into the station at four AM. lit the fire in the potbellied stove in the waiting room below the boys bedroom, met the way-freight, unloaded the mail and manhandled the jangling cream cans on the platform attached to the station and we never woke up. Sensory adaptation.
        However, when the running employees went on strike and the trains stopped running for a few days the silence was eerie. We all woke up repeatedly during the night. Habituation,  no matter how chaotic
told you everything must be alright with the world. We adapt to the familiar , however unusual, but change, seemingly innocuous, brings sensory adaptation to a halt. Unconsciously alert to danger. There is little control of part of the autonomous brain which serves protection.

     In mid January on Lotus Island I hustle to the supermarket to get the first of the Seville oranges that have just arrived. They are not a hot ticket item any more so they often languish in the bin at the store and dry out. We hardy few who look forward to our bitter marmalade preservation every year mark the calendar. The Seville oranges came from the boulevard trees in Mesa, Arizona.  At then.  Mary, Queen of Scots would have had her oranges shipped from Spain. My reason to hurry is the oranges are still early arrivals and are young and moist.
      A patient of mine, a distant Chivers relative, gave me his three-day recipe which I have always diligently followed. However since some of the people I love do not like large peel slices I use the Cuisinart  rather than a knife to chop the peel more finely and skip tradition. Because I was early,  my oranges are plump and clean without scars. Sevilles, even so , are the most ugly of the orange varieties so don't be dissuaded by their lack of beauty!  Don't take offence at the bitterness of the fruit. Ugly and bitter will transform to sublime in the hands of the lover.  Gentle patience is all that is necessary. The following is the recipe I was given a la Chivers.
       Day1, 8 large Seville oranges, 2 lemons. Halve these all and remove the fruit. Leave all the pith on the peel. Place the fruit in a muslin bag. Chop up the orange and lemon peel with the pith. (I use the Cuisinart). Place all the material together in a large container. {Make sure your muslin bag doesn't leak or you'll have seeds in your marmalade}. Add ten cups of water and soak overnight.
         Day 2, Boil contents for 45 minutes. Let cool and rest for the balance of the day. I have found that you may need a little more water. Keep a sharp eye.
          Day 3,  Take out the muslin bag and squeeze well.  Add one and one quarter cups of sugar to each cup of your product. Boil for 45 minutes timed from the point of rapid boiling. Simmer longer if the marmalade does not jell well when dripping off the spoon. Then fill your jars with hot product, the jars preheated at 275 degrees on a tray in the oven. Seal.
         The quality of the jelling varies with the thickness of the pith in my view. The need to add water at any point varies with the varied hydration of the oranges. The marmalade darkens over the year but the quality is unchanged. No extra pectin is needed: no treacle: no food additives: just sugar and fruit.  Bon appetite.
       

    Our family never had a car when I was growing up in the 40's and 50's. In the small towns we lived in there was no need for one, and no other families I recall had one. When I was in high school in Lestock, Saskatchewan in the early fifties, you could walk everywhere in no time  flat. The length and breadth of the town would have been about  six round stones,  thrown by a husky boy with a good right arm. Because we had to walk every where, we were healthy and have lived a long time and never had to jog or ride a stationary bicycle.
      My mother and I went to Regina with Joe Lucas in his truck to buy our first car from a widow we knew, a year old 1949 Meteor. I was amazed. I had never thought of our family up to then, as "car people". I had never seen my mother drive and that was amazing too. I felt as proud as punch for her that day. She was a bit nervous about driving alone on the country roads back to home and took me along for company. We never ever felt the lack of a car prior to that period. I don't remember the topic ever coming up. All the farmers had trucks and in big towns some people had cars but we always had the train to travel on since my dad was a railroader and we had passes.
       After we got the car our life didn't change very much at all. We could go to the Touchwood hills to swim in the lakes and pick wild strawberries. We could drive ourselves to Regina to watch the Saskatchewan Roughriders. That was about all the of  the cars usefulness was of to me and nothing changed. I never got a drivers licence at that time and went to university that fall, so was car less for the next decade. It didn't seem to matter much since the buses in Winnipeg were good. They are always good when cars are scarce. The car has destroyed public transport. I have never been afflicted with car love.

      There is no doubt that food grown naturally is good for your organs. The organic movement has, by common usage now, co-opted I think,  that in the olden days would have been a misnomer. Organ was a musical instrument  or part of one's anatomy.  When I grew up in a small village in Saskatchewan, everyone had a vegetable garden. The only amendment I can remember was manure. Because the soil was prairie gumbo the dirt was very deep and never required watering other than after initial sprouting and seeding. There were no chemical fertilizers or pesticides I can think of except Paris Green.
          What we grew we ate and canned, or at least my mother canned in glass sealers. There was no plastic.There was  sealing wax but no snap lids. There were no freezers. In some sense really the organic movement is archaic and a trip back in time.
          The pianist and I went to the farmer's market and bought the most beautiful vegetables, full of sweetness, naturally grown by slim, healthy, bronzed people.  What a pleasure. My daughter is an organic farmer and I understand the work it now entails to grow that kind of food in the scrupulous fashion that requires a diligence we never had to provide in the olden days. Certainly there were pests and diseases then but they were far less numerous, as I recall in contrast to today's environment.
    When one is largely confined to eating what one can grow and preserve, the palate becomes limited. When you have been through all the eating styles and limitless choices over eight decades your palate may return to foods limited by choice to those locally grown. Though organic food grown locally may cost a bit more of necessity, we are so lucky to be able to return to food that is good for our organs.

      Ingestion, procreation and evacuation are the fundamentals of life. Everything else is ancillary---devoted to serving these fundamentals. If one wishes to discuss life broadly, one will miss the essence by sticking to the ancillary and ornamental. Those of us in the practice of surgery, anatomy or physiology are by necessity engaged with the human vessel and in contact always with its fundamentals. Whether a Paramoecium, {a one celled tube} or a Homo sapiens {a complex multicellular collection of bundled tubing}. we ingest procreate and evacuate.
        When at work your day is spent with the fingers in the bowel, gall bladder, or pharynx, pinching and fingering the ancillary sidekicks like the common bile duct, the ureters or the soft palate, all of which are conduits that are traveled daily, one becomes intimate with the fundamentals. If your fingers are in the aorta or portal vein, carotid artery or left ventricle, tubes which serve the fundamentals, one understands how the system works. The brain is the largest sex organ and  the greatest forager, orchestrating the tubing.
       You will know that if the fundamentals are suddenly not working, the brain crashes to emergency mode. concentration on other matters is impossible, and the tubing becomes the most important thing in the world. Great art, music, philosophy, love,  compassion, indwelling spirit, science of particles, universe and  earth: all these beauties are evolved from this bundle of tubes we call our human vessel, and though normally worshiped are set aside. It is easy to forget without our fundamentals we are nothing.
       This is not well understood by a Paramoecium who has not been gifted with abstract thinking powers, but is also a hard fact  to remember by even a smart Homo sapiens.
     "You know", said my other interior self when he read what I have just written, "You are being a bit coarse, your fleshly strand is running on its own and your surgical gestalt is puffed up today. Is it that you need more attention from me?  We are all a bit tired of how you favour the flesh over spirit and intellect in the cord of  life"
      " You must know without something to worship there is no life!"

Write your own moral stand

And designate it as the high road

Cut away from those who don't walk it

Enjoy your heady view

Your standpoint allows it and your ramparts seem secure

And

You are worthy to gather the crumbs

You think worthy to eat the whole loaf

But

Your concrete doesn't bind

The stones loosen and roll

It's a long way to fall

All is vanity