For years our family has spoken Eg Latin, a superior subset of Pig Latin that has a much greater cypher advantage than other forms of Pig Latin. Eg Latin is either not generally known, or alternatively below dignity for most of the linguistically superior amongst us. We used it for fun, a harmless preoccupation, but it was completely confounding to the uninitiated.
     In standaed Pig Latin the first consonant or consonant cluster is transposed to the end of the word and a post-fixed vocalization, AY, is placed behind the transposed letter or cluster .  Hence Rhinocerous would be represented as  inocerousrhay or  hinocerousray. Not too difficult to translate even for the easily confounded. With Eg Latin, each syllable of a word is applied with the vocalization  Eg,  without transposition of letters. Hence Rhinocerous becomes Rheginegocegeregous. You will see from this that Eg has followed the consonant or consonant cluster of each syllable in its place, but  the last one , "ous"  which has no consonant so the  Eg precedes the "ous" or in any syllable that begins with a vowel.
         This is much easier to speak than it looks. Small children will take to it like a duck to water. Start with simple stuff Like Pig---Pegig , Latin=== Legategin,  Over-- Egoveger. The only reason I started with Rhinocerous  was to demonstrate  how effective this was with multisyllabics
    I was taught this Pig matter by my father and have taught it to my succeeding generations. I recall flying with our family somewhere years ago and talking quietly in Eg Latin to a kid of ours that was misbehaving. Suddenly the family seated behind us joined our conversation much to our delight.
      I am completely illiterate in any language except English, so I scrape the bottom of the barrel as my only claim to linguistic pluralism is derived from the country of Eg.

Out of interest I traveled once to an alternative therapies conference on back pain. It was an interesting experience to listen to the diverse opinions and seriousness with which some of the proponents of the various treatments described their results. At a break in the conference for lunch, I was seated next to a young woman practitioner of a discipline with which I was not familiar. We engaged in a short conversation as she seemed very pleasant and was surprised when I told her I was a medical doctor.
       She said, "Pardon me for saying this , but why is it that medical doctors' handwriting is so illegible?  "Well, I said  "It's because we are taught to write badly.  In the second year medical school class the course, How to Write Bad 201 is taught"
         " How can that be ?" she said credulously. I waited for a glint of humor in those eyes, but it didn't appear.
            "Well" I said,  piling it on, "We can't be held  responsible for what we write,  since no one else can read it but us."
            " Good heavens." she said,  "I didn't know that. I looked for any sign of amusement, but there was none in that serious mien.
             Up the ante was my way to deal with the matter. Surely in that stretch she would see that I was joking.  "Yes"  I said,  "and in the course in third year medicine,  how to Mumble 301 is taught.  Hence we complete the skill set, how to communicate without doing so.  That way we avoid any trouble such as  , 'You said this or that ! ' "
          "Well " she said as she rose from the table,  " I'm glad you told me that ! "  I could see immediately that I was in deep trouble. She didn't get it. My humor fell flat. To disavow it  now would be disingenuous and reaffirm what she probably wished to believe in the first place. I had just trashed myself and medicine in the face of an attempt at ill-advised humor in the wrong arena. Some insight would suggest that I was a smart-ass.
         I could imagine the furtive looks of disgust from the assembly of conference  attendees in the coffee hour later.  I slunk away and listened to the rest of the conference in the shadows. As so many of my loved ones have said to me before, " Why can't you ever be serious for once?"

 The crawl space of the house we built on Lotus Island is three feet high, large and labyrinthine in nature since it was adapted to a previous footprint. When traversing the labyrinth on one's belly and knees the odd pink insulation that hangs down spookily, brushes one's face in the dark while the crawling, wiggling ,undulating movements causes cement dust to call up little storm clouds. As we do, we sense the sounds of fluids running in and out of the many pipes, ingressing and egressing to and from the house, giving one's hand a little thrill as the myriad of pipes softly vibrate in response to the flow.
       Here is a world apart and alive, but connected to a house that credits little to its dependence on the vital and visceral nature emanating from this dark region. There is no area so underestimated in importance as this subterranean world.The heat, the light, the water, the ventilation, the septic system, the internet, the communication, all arise from the Action Central,  the crawl space. I like being there because one is right at the source, the vital organs, where every thing hangs in the balance and deep understanding is supplied to the kinetics of the house. It is the place the houses  all draw from and connect to the world at large. The umbilical cords are there,  connected to the placental world.
      And yet the realtors never sing the praises of the crawl space. The purchasers never celebrate the crawl space with its firm and anchoring foundation walls protecting the umbilical cords. No poet creates a panegyric to its footprint  that serves the house so well, and yet is so unsung.  Some of those of a more delicate nature may find it arduous and unpleasant to enter this dark world on their belly where the possibility of vermin, wasps, bees and ants often coexist. These dark adapted inhabitants won't likely adversely affect Action Central. They just know a good place when they find one.
        My son-in -law and I spent an hour or so in the crawl space worming our way through the apertures of the labyrinth, necessarily prostrating ourselves to its beauties. Our exploration was like an exploratory laparotomy where you examine and admire the conduits and the vital organs in action that make the organism go. The crawl space is the mother of necessity.

'I recently read a column in the National Post by Barbara Amiel in which she mentioned Septimus Harding, in passing. He is one of my favorite characters in fiction, and a subject that figures large, in Anthony Trollope's novel, Barchester Towers. He is a prime example of the ordinary as truly extraordinary.
      The fabric of the novel clearly displays the seven cardinal sins, shown in relief in the carefully crafted clergy, But throughout, the threads of this seemingly ordinary man Septimus appear from time to time , always in the background, except at the conclusion.
       In the BBC film production of Barchester Towers, artistic license  was taken,in that the paragraph about Septimus Harding that ends the novel has been moved and placed instead in the film as a eulogy provided by his son-in-law. But as I say again, in the book it is Trollope's own concluding narrative paragraph. Clearly it is of great importance to Trollope as he takes it upon himself to describe his own feelings toward his own creation, rather than the film narrative device  of having another character speak of him.
        Herein goes the paragraph:  " The author now leaves him  (Harding) in the hands of his readers;  not as a hero, not as a man to be admired and talked of, not as a man who should be toasted at public dinners and spoken of with conventional absurdity as a perfect divine, but as a good man without guile, believing humbly in the religion which he has striven to teach, and guided by the precepts which he has striven to learn."
         One can clearly see why the BBC had to place this wonderful paragraph as dialogue to include it. One can also clearly see why Trollope is willing to place Septimus Harding at the mercy of his readers. One can clearly see the place in this life of the Septimus Hardings of this world is so obscured by the lurid and extravagant that we can not see them through the haze. When a master like Trollope brings them into life we are humbled by their majesty.

Next week is Remembrance Day. My anticipated experience with war was never to take place. In 1994 the continuation of civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovena between the multi-ethnic factions of the former Yugoslavians was at a height and thousands were dying. My friends John, an anaesthetist, and David, a plastic surgeon went off to Sarajevo with Medicines sans Frontieres to do voluntary work for a time in the fray. The MSF held no candle for Christian or Muslim, or Croatian or Serbian. Surgical care was care and even handed.
       John visited me for lunch when he returned and we talked. I thought about it briefly and phoned the nurse-coordinator in Toronto for MSF and talked to her, She said an Orthopedic surgeon was needed and would be valuable and agreed to sign me on as a volunteer if I thought about it. The pianist and I went out for supper and I told her what I had considered,  but I couldn"t really tell her why. I guessed it came down to John was so enthused with his own experience that I wanted a taste of the same.
        A family member of mine who was a policeman and had been a military policeman overseas told me I was too old to go and that my plan was silly. He said, "You are sixty years old and it's a war zone. You have rheumatoid arthritis and you can't run on a road with potholes of craters from explosives and carry a heavy pack and if there is conflict when you are in the operating room, no one is going to help you get out. You'll be on your own."  It may be that what might have superficially appeared as altruistic on my part was a fraud but my age and lack of fleetness off foot was not fraudulent and he was right. The pianist had the good sense to let the matter drop as a momentary loss of reality and a return to reason.
        However,  I can remember tomorrow  and lament the loss of the young, tomorrow and every day, and be grateful for those who do work to care for the injured in hospitals where there is war. But it wouldn't be helpful to get in the way of the young and competent. I guess it's still true, that your young men will have visions;  your old men will dream dreams.

Through the window of the east wall of the Chemaimus Theatre, dining room,  one can see the Tree of Heaven on November 11th, it's brown and red helicopter seeds gone, leaves gone but still flourishing in the dry and unforgiving pavement of the ground. All Saints and All Souls day are approaching and Remembrance day is near. All are a reminder of those who have gone before for we who have admired the Tree of Heaven.
       As a young surgeon I worked in the 1960's and 70's in the Veterans Hospital in Lotus City before it was subsumed by the Royal Jubilee Hospital as the Memorial Pavilion. From the large operating room windows one could see the large Trees of Heaven on Adanac Street adjacent to the Veteran's Hospital. They seemed appropriately placed with their helicopter seeds spreading thoughout the neighborhood.
         My thoughts have gravitated recently to the Veterans hospital, now gone , and the Tree of Heaven and Remembrance Day and All Souls Day. For those veterans now gone----" These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb-------- and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes."  (Revelations)