Vacation Stories: Special Events

We went to two special events while we were in Melbourne. The first was a special speaker in the Melbourne Convention Centre (a wonderful huge building), and the second was a musical play in a downtown theatre.

I’ll start with the theatre. As we drove into the city on our first morning, Lois saw the advertisements for “Come from Away.” She immediately started campaigning for us to go see it: “The remarkable true story of the small town that welcomed the world.” Gander, Newfoundland is a small town, the furthest east on the North American coast as planes fly across the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of about 10,000 people, they become hosts to 6,700 passengers and 38 civilian aircraft forced to land when the USA and Canada closed their airspace following the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 in 2001. “Come from Away” tells their story.

It is perhaps ironic that we left Canada and went to Australia to watch a play set in our eastern-most province, but I have to say the play was superb. A blend of humour and the ordinary struggle of daily life set in the unique context of Newfoundlander hospitality and outsider wonder. As the population was almost doubled overnight, the people thrown together discovered resources they may not have realised were buried within, and together they worked out a deeply human and powerful response to great tragedy.

One small vignette: I enjoyed watching the passenger from New York billeted with a Gander family, as he moved from suspicion that everyone was ready to mug him to suspicion that they would just steal his wallet to a recognition that they were simply ready to be his friends. Our family is in debt to Lois for insisting that we go to see this delightful comedy-drama. I know that I am relatively unsophisticated in theatre, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

The special speaker was Jonathan Haidt, professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU. An organization called Think Inc brought Haidt to Melbourne for a lecture on July 21, “Moral Psychology in an Age of Outrage”. Haidt has taken on a number of “moral leaders” in North American culture, from religious leaders to progressives, in an effort to help us suspend judgment while hearing the other.

I resonate with Haidt’s thoughts, although I may be one of those leaders in a church setting (as an associate pastor in a local church) he is seeking to rein in. In the many difficult conversations we need to have in our society (from sexual ethics to creation care), I have watched in dismay as people dismiss those with whom they disagree as moral reprobates. The cry “Lock her up” comes from one particular political context, but it expresses the way people all across the spectrum respond to those “on the other side”. Such “moral outrage” is counterproductive and often simply wrong.

One of his observations in the question and answer time struck me. Progressives generally have championed being open to people of all kinds and conservatives have generally wanted people to stay in their own place. Surprisingly, then, Haidt observed that he has been vilified by progressives and treated respectfully by conservatives when disagreeing with them. Current political currents in the USA make this observation a surprise – the Republican Party does not specialise in respectful interaction at the moment. Haidt’s observation of his own experience reminds us that highly public figures are not necessarily a good measure of the totality of any movement. I think he was asking for more of that respectful response from both sides.

Two very different events, both enjoyed and appreciated, and both part of a wonderful trip down under.

Vacation Stories: Churches

Today is a Sunday, so here are some stories of the churches we went to.

Our first Sunday, we attended St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “mother church of the Archdiocese of Melbourne”. We had noticed the cathedral in our walks, often with tourists taking pictures. Beautiful grounds with some lovely magnolia flowers; a striking steeple, which became a landmark for us to find our way back to Nevin and Ali’s apartment; uncomfortable pews (designated by our hosts as the most uncomfortable they had experienced).

The morning mass was led by a Palestinian priest. Notable in our worship experience was the closing prayer – the Ave Maria chanted in Arabic, sounding similar to the Arabic I have heard used in the mosque in Winnipeg.

Our second Sunday, we attended St. Francis’ Church, billed as the oldest Catholic church in the Province of Victoria. The cantor was a woman, which our daughter-in-law told us is unusual. The priest reminded the parishioners to carry their belongings with them when they took communion – a reminder that this is a downtown church and one’s stuff is not safe left in the pew. We went to the church hall for tea and coffee when the service was done. One has the impression of a vibrant community in the heart of the city of Melbourne.

Our last Sunday was at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, more fully, “St. Peter’s Eastern Hill”. We realised immediately that we were not in a low church Anglican setting, as the trio of clergy wended their way to the front, scattering incense as they went. This is not a church for those with scent sensitivity!

St. Peter’s is definitely “Anglo-Catholic”, with some elements that would be unusual even in other high Anglican churches. The New Testament Scripture and Gospel were chanted rather than simply read – giving me a sense of connection to the way that Jews read the Torah using a set chanted melody. The responses included an excellent choir. Someone else might have found the music “too highbrow”, but I found it deeply stimulating. It was a wonderful time of worship.

St. Peter’s was also the scene of another serendipity. The sermon was given by a visiting preacher, Dean of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne. He turned out to have been Associate Dean of Tyndale UC and Seminary in Toronto, one of Providence’s sister schools in Canada, about 15 to 20 years ago. So the preacher knew Providence, and in this high Anglican scented setting with the chants of the psalms and scriptures in our ears, I found a colleague from the Canadian seminary scene.

We enjoyed our church contacts in Melbourne, but it was good to worship at home this morning. Steinbach Mennonite Church is home, and we are glad to be home.

Vacation Stories: Walking

I could title this “transit stories”, but so much of our “transit” was on foot. Melbourne is a large and densely populated city. Not so densely as some, since Australia has lots of room, but there are people all over the place. Nevin and Ali walk everywhere, so we did to.

Time to go to work: A 10-minute stroll down to their office on Victoria Parade. Let’s go grocery shopping: A 15-minute walk either to Aunt Maggie’s (organic groceries) or Woolworths (a larger grocery store). To the Royal Botanic Gardens: 30 minutes through the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the tennis courts where the Australian Open is played, across the Yarra River, and into the gardens. A cup of coffee on Lygon Street (lovely Italian cafes): 45 minutes down Victoria Parade and through the Carlton Gardens, into the long street of cafes and restaurants and shops. Just lovely. Another 15 minutes on to Trinity College, University of Melbourne? Sure! Why not? Only an hour’s walk back to Powlett Avenue, where we stayed.

Is it too far to walk? The trams and busses run regularly and take you to your destination quickly. We learned to use the Myki card, which gave us access to the trams and busses (and also to the trains, which we did not use). Is transit going to take too long? Or are there four of you, so that transit costs more? We learned about Uber. I was surprised at how convenient and quick Uber is, at least in a city like Melbourne. I doubt it would work as well in Steinbach.

Uber in Melbourne had the advantage that it introduced us to a wide variety of drivers – a Greek Australian who had moved to Greece as a young man and was now back home; a young Somali man who lit up when I asked if he was from Somalia; a Pashto from that part of Pakistan closest to Afghanistan. I learned from him that most of the Afghani are Pakistanis like him with family ties in Afghanistan. They came close, so close, to beating both India and Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup this year. It would have been their greatest coup!

I also enjoyed using the few words I have in other languages: “Assalamu alaykum” to the Muslims; “Efcharisto” to the Greek Australian; “Asante sana” to the Somali (OK – Swahili belongs next door in Kenya, but hey!). I am no linguist, but I enjoyed the multiplicity of cultures and languages around us in the city.

Melbourne and Australia as a whole are in the Asian orbit, so our walks took us into and through many little pieces of Asia, from Indonesia to Korea and from China to the Middle East. I was struck with the relative absence of Black people. Africa is more in the orbit of North America than it is of Australia.

The overall impression of life in Melbourne, then, included walking – to church, to eat out, to worship, to shop, to play chess; whatever it was, we walked to it. Now we’re back in Steinbach, and the garage door rolls up and down and the car carries us where we want to go. Almost makes me miss the civilized patterns built on walking almost everywhere.

Vacation Stories: OM Australia

In this and the next few blogs, I will tell some stories from our recent trip to Australia. We flew to Melbourne to visit Nevin and Ali, our son and his wife, who have recently taken positions there at the Australian Catholic University.

We spent three weeks in Melbourne, arriving on Tuesday morning, 16 July, and leaving on Tuesday morning, 6 August. On the first Friday there, Lois and I were fairly well acclimated. On our second Friday there, we [I] decided to go on an excursion. For the past 20 years (or just under), I have been on the board of OM Canada. Operation Mobilization (OM) is a worldwide organization that focusses on five primary goals: evangelism, church planting, relief and development, justice, and mentoring and discipleship. I have seen how OM Canada works in these areas and have relied often on OM to keep me in touch with the subjects I teach.

With this appreciation in mind, I wanted to see the head office of OM Australia, which is in a suburb of Melbourne. A quick Internet search showed that we could take the 906 bus 30 minutes east of Nevin and Ali’s apartment, and then walk for 10 minutes to the office. The weather promised rain, but we decided to head off to Blackburn, Victoria and find the office.

About 40 minutes later, we reached the office, just as the rain began to come down. My watch read 1 pm, which in Australia means lunch time. We ducked under the roof and tried the door. Locked. I thought we might go for lunch in a nearby café, but first we rang the doorbell. After a short delay, someone came to the door. She opened the door and looked at us doubtfully. “I’m sorry, we’re not actually open today. The Australian OM Board is meeting today and they’re at lunch.”

That piqued my interest for several reasons. One, my connection to OM is through the Canadian Board. Two, OM is divided into several administrative layers – from the International Director to Area Directors (in charge of administrative areas) to Country Directors, and so on. Australia and Canada happen to be in the same administrative area, so I asked, “Is the area director here?” She replied that he was, so I asked if I could greet him. She took us in to the room where the board had just sat down to eat, with the administrative staff of OM Australia.

When Harvey saw us, he was (I think) surprised. “Daryl and Lois! What are you doing here?” “Visiting our son and his wife,” I replied. “Well, join us for lunch!” Which we did, gratefully. We enjoyed the Nando’s peri-peri chicken with fries, and we enjoyed the chance meeting even more. Then Harvey said, “I fly back to Canada tomorrow, but I’m free this evening. Would you like to join me for supper?” So it was that Nevin and Alison and Lois and I joined Harvey that evening at an Indian restaurant named Ish in East Melbourne.

When the board returned to their meeting, Lois and I spent another hour talking with some of the staff over a cup of coffee, a delicious cappuccino. It was good to see a bit of what God is doing in and through OM Australia. The staff wondered how we knew that Harvey would be there. I told them that we had no such idea; we had come by the office because we were visiting our son and his wife. Coming to the office was a bonus, with no idea of who might be there. God’s arrangement, not ours!

That evening, Harv hosted us at Ish. My farewell dinner to the OM Board. I have finished my team with the board because I’m ready to release various responsibilities, especially those that conflict with acting as the associate pastor at Steinbach Mennonite, our home church. Travel to Ontario for Saturday board meetings come into that category.

I leave the board with real regret, since OM Canada has been so valuable to my own spiritual and intellectual development, so I appreciated Harv’s gesture. Our May board meeting was my last. Sometimes (not always) we go out for supper after a board meeting, especially to say goodbye to someone. Thanks to God’s timing, Harv was able to give me (and Lois and Nevin and Ali) a farewell dinner for my time on the OM board. A special twist to a trip taken to visit family.

Anniversary on the Great Ocean Road

On our anniversary, number 42 -- 30 July 2019 -- we drove the Great Ocean Road. More accurately, we were driven. With 43 other passengers and our driver, James, we bumped and swayed an expressed our amazement and delight at the sights and stories (from James) of the Australian coastline.

From Melbourne to Port Campbell, then inland to the A1, and back to Melbourne (some 550 km or so in about 12 hours). A good overview and introduction to life in Victoria.

Some impressions.


The Ocean. Waves rolling in from the south, so that surfers are often seen there. We saw none.

Koalas. Almost immobile, so that when one person found a koala sitting in the crook of a gum tree, reaching out and taking some eucalyptus leaves, then munching them before going back to sleep, the rest of us could find it too. Not bears, we were told -- they lack the koala-fications.



The coast. Rugged. Cliffs broken by occasional bays and beaches, with the road cut out by hand through the difficult countryside.

The relentless surf has shaped soft rocks into a razorback, into the 12 apostles (or eight apostles and two sisters), into wonderful shapes pleasing to the eye and dangerous for ships. James kept up a stream of stories, one shipwreck after another, especially from the days of sailing vessels before the advent of steam.










Tourists -- like us. I would like to find one of the places we stopped at to sit and watch patiently when the crowds are gone. The surf and foam are patient. They keep their rhythm, an endless sound and sight of water and wind and rock. We are impatient, on a mission to see the next sight. I would like to mimic the patience of the ocean and sit in Port Campbell watching and listening. Life beyond the stream of tourists breathes in the surf and wind left behind when the last bus is gone.

Villages dotted along the coast, shaped by place and by tourism. Anglesea and Lorne shaped irrevocably, Port Campbell touched more lightly -- living dual lives: their own and ours. Port Campbell is the smallest and quietest at the end of the line for our bus.

Back to Melbourne on the A1, a slice of Victoria that deserves its own exploration, passed through too quickly in the darkness as we watch the story of "Oddball", a dog in Warrnambul who saved the little penguins there from extinction by fox. (A true story.) Written down here in an attempt to remember and keep alive in the pathways of my heart and mind.

P.S.: This was indeed our 42nd anniversary, a unique and good celebration. I wish I could give Lois such a day whenever she wanted it. Too small a gift in return for all that she has given me.

A Story of Passports, continued

A few months ago, I traced our family's early life through passports. (Here is the link for that blog.)  Since then I have found two more passports in my desk -- newer than those, but from a time still long ago in our life as a couple.

The first one is the passport I carried to Zimbabwe in 1972. It was issued in Nov 1971, good for five years. I remember flying to Kenya and waiting a week in Nairobi for my work permit to enter Rhodesia. Returning to the States in Dec 1974, I spent a week in the UK, visiting Howard Hall (a friend in Manchester), going to a carols by candlelight in Westminster Cathedral (which, as it happens) is not Westminster Abbey, and forgetting to tell my parents when I would arrive. I landed in Chicago and called their home in Nappanee, Indiana. Collect, of course. Dad, mom, and Denise promptly got in the car and drove to O'Hare Airport to pick me up. we had supper in a diner beside the turnpike on the way home.
Two years after mine, Lois got her passport (also good for five years) to travel to Europe in 1973. She spent a year in Zaandam, Holland as a Menno Trainee, and visited Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, and other countries in Europe during that year. She also used it three years later to do her SST in Belize. Her passport picture shows Lois as I first met her. A good likeness!

We've travelled a lot since then, coming up on our 41st anniversary. But here's what we looked like when our journey together began, so many years ago.

A Story of Passports

I wonder what the plural is for a group of passports -- a murder of crows, a flock of birds, a herd of cattle. Maybe, a story of passports?

My siblings and I went through Dad's stuff this past July, after Dad's funeral. He had made sure that we had taken most of what we wanted before he died, but a small room remained. His last home on this earth. In these remnants of our parents' lives, we sifted through various items. Then we handed our selection to Nevin to keep at his house, since Lois and I were flying home.

When we visited for Christmas, Nevin handed us back our stuff, several boxers symbolizing Dad's life. I found his collar and dickey -- a black dickey (sort of like a bib) with white collars, which he used to wear as a minister in Zimbabwe, more than 50 years ago. I tried to see if I could put it on, but the collars are faded and brittle. I am ordained, as he was, but I will stick to normal Western wear.

I found two of his pocket knives. Dad was never without a pocket knife, for use, not for show. With me, they are purely for show. I found his date books -- 50+ years of date books. In the last year of his life, he weighed himself daily and recorded his weight. He had trouble keeping his weight up, so he chronicled his daily journey to eat enough eggs and get enough protein.

Finally, I found an envelope. A large plain brown envelope with the address of BIC Missions and some stamps. Inside I found passports, dated from 1946 to 1963. Here (briefly) is their story.

1946. Just after World War Two. Mom and Dad were scheduled to travel to Africa to begin their first term in Zambia, but pent-up demand for berths made it almost impossible to find space to sail to England. Dad told me the story of how one day he and Grandfather C drove to New York to look for tickets to sail to Africa. After much searching, they found a travel agent who told them he could get them seats on an airplane -- not the way we normally travelled in those days. Dad and Grandpa drove back to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and out to Ira Musser's farm. Musser was the missions board secretary, and in charge of getting them to Africa. They found him in the field, ploughing, and asked him if they had permission to buy the tickets. he immediately told them to buy the tickets and to get seats for the rest of the missionary party also. I think their party consisted of eight people: Mom and Dad and Donna (above), Lewis and Gladys Sider (with son John), and Lulu Asper, Rhoda Lenhert, and Florence Hensel.

They flew from New York to Gander, Newfoundland, where they were unable to land because of fog. I think they went to Monckton, NB. The next day they went on to the Azores islands, two-thirds of the way to Portugal, and then on to Portugal. From Portugal they flew to Dakar, Senegal, and then on to Monrovia in Liberia.  Finally they flew to what today is called Kinshasa, Congo, and then to what is now Lubumbashi. The last stage of their journey was by train, from Lubumbashi across the border into Zambia, and then on south to their destination in Bulawayo. They arrived in Bulawayo on Christmas Day, 1946. The beginning of almost 20 years in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Their passport has the stamps from government officials chronicling their journey. A story of passports.

1950. I suspect that the passports had a five year limit, since their next passport includes me, issued four years later. They travelled on a family passport, showing and signed by David Climenhaga and Dorcas Climenhaga, and adding the names of their children, Donna and Daryl. I think I can see some weariness in my parents' faces. They had another daughter in between, who never made the passport, Dorothy Leigh, born in April 1948, and died in November, 1948. Expatriate life is often hard.

1956 (I think). Just before Denise joined the family. A typical missionary family photograph. You can see the collar and dickey my father wore, sort of like an Anglican priest. Odd, for Brethren in Christ folk, whose motto was simplicity, but understood by the people around us in a British colony. The same reason that my parents finally bought a wedding ring for mother about five years later. It stopped the English from thinking that they were not married, but "living in sin".

1957. Denise was born, and we added her to the family passport by the simple expedient of adding a picture of mother holding her, signed before the relevant American authorities. So much simpler than life is today. Denise looks unimpressed by the proceedings. I like the way that the side view shows mother's covering, a part of her dress that I took for granted for the first 15+ years of my life. I notice also (at least I think I saw this) that, when she stopped wearing the covering, it disappeared from her clothes entirely. Dad took off the collar and dickey at the same time, but it was still in his dresser drawer when he died, just over 50 years later.

1959. This photograph appeared in the book of missionary families in 1960, a copy of which sits in my office. here it served first to include Donna and then to remove her from our family passport. We must have travelled home to the USA on this passport in 1959 as a family. Donna remained in the USA when we returned to Zimbabwe the following year. As a result, she got her own passport, and had to be removed from the family passport. Again, a simple procedure, appearing before the relevant American official, who crossed her off, and it was done.

The last two passports complete the journey. I think that these were the first individual passports they held. Denise and I got individual passports at the same time. A little context. This was a period of political instability. Dad was the bishop of the church and general superintendent of the mission. If troubles of some sort or other broke out in Zimbabwe, especially in Bulawayo where we lived, individual passports enabled us to travel separately if necessary. Dad could stay behind and keep things going, while mother and Denise and I could head for South Africa and home.

I have wondered about that time. I remember getting my passport. It felt cool, and I felt grown up. I'm not sure I would have felt quite so pleased if I had known why I now had my own passport. Two years later we left Zimbabwe. I returned for three years in the 1970s, so that I was there for the beginning of the Liberation Struggle, but that's another story. A story of passports.

Mennonite World Conference

I went to a day and a bit of Pennsylvania 2015—the 16thAssembly of the global Anabaptist family. I enjoyed myself of course. I doubt that my reflections are unusual are more insightful than anyone else’s, but here is a bit of what I experienced.

I was reminded again (not for the first time, as Bilbo thought often on his travels) that I tend to complain first and enjoy later. This time I complained about the cost of attending the gathering. I think I have a reasonable complaint. North Americans and Europeans paid more than others who attended, because we have more. Trouble is: Some Mennonites in NA have more than others, and putting the cost up discriminates in favour of wealthier Mennos and against others. I would prefer a means test to a geography test.

But this is such a minor problem; Mennos from other countries faced obstacles just getting there. Our government (USA and Canada act alike on this one) keeps out so many people from Africa as to make such gatherings unnecessarily difficult. Many efforts were made to open the doors, but even so a choir from Kenya scheduled to sing at PA 2015 had to perform with only five of their usual 40 members. And I complain about cost? Petty.

I was reminded also (again, not for the first time) that Global Anabaptism is much more than the North American Church. Speakers throughout the event came from all over the Anabaptist world. Their concerns were not the same as ours, and the answers were not the same as ours. Although I may think that we sometimes have the right answer, and they are wrong, I believe we need to listen carefully to our Mennonite sisters and brothers from Congo and Zimbabwe, from India and Indonesia, and from Paraguay and Argentina.

Talking with a few of my international friends, I noted that they were aware of their status as guests and slow to criticize or judge us. We are too quick to judge when we go abroad and can learn from them even in learning how to be guests overseas. But when they did describe what they see in us, I decided that what I thought were our main issues were not the ones they picked on. Consumerism—our attachments to money and things, and our tendency to measure everything by money—is a bigger problem.

I observed a great deal of life and energy in the global Anabaptist movement. We worry sometimes that the church is ready to die. Not if PA 2015 is anything to go by. Perhaps the NA church is getting older and needs renewing, but the global church is a showcase of God’s goodness and life. Being part of PA 2015 was a wonderful opportunity to participate in that energy and life.

I wonder how others experienced the week. I may have told more about myself than about the gathering, even in what I noticed, but this description is a bit of what I experienced. The next assembly is six years from now in Indonesia. I doubt that I’ll be there, but I’m looking forward to it anyway.

P.S.: I would have added pictures, but the MWC website has better pictures than I do.

P.P.S: Regrets? I wish I could have been part of the Anabaptist World Cup, which had participants aged from 15 to 64. Cool!

Driving Toronto Crazy

Last weekend I went to TO for a board meeting. (Operation Mobilization Canada—always a good experience.) I flew in to Toronto Pearson International, rented a car, and drove to my host’s house in Oakville. Therein lies a story. (Nansi indaba, as they say in Zimbabwe.) 

I got a Chevrolet Sonic, nice small car with 1400 kms on it. About 8:30 in the evening, I cued my host’s address in to our GPS and got ready to roll. The first check was the GPS’s struggle to locate a satellite through the concrete of the airport garage, but I knew to head south on 427 so I headed south. 

Eventually the GPS succeeded and instructions began to appear on the screen. Second check. I was busy trying to remain calm in Toronto traffic with my nerves attuned to driving on the prairies. In Manitoba, the sudden appearance of five cars constitutes a traffic jam. There were more than five cars around me, making it hard to focus on the GPS screen. 

Then I realized what part of my trouble was. Although I like the GPS voice, especially if I can get a nice soothing English accent, my family finds it annoying, no matter what the accent. (I need the one Lauren had—a South African mammy berating you for not doing what she clearly just told you to do.) Since Lois does not like the voice, I had it muted. With all the cars around me I couldn’t get the voice back, and the screen was hard to focus on. 

 

Third check. Bright lights behind me, closing in fast. I reached up to the rear view mirror and adjusted it to make the bright lights softer, more harmonious with my need for calm. There were several buttons on the mirror I had not noticed. Then came a voice I did not want, not the GPS for sure. “This is OnStar.” “You have begun your OnStar call. What would you like?” I could see no off button. Silence didn’t work: “I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear you.” Words didn’t work—I tried, “Off”: “I’m sorry. I don’t understand you.” Repeated apologies, making me truly sorry! 

Finally, almost distraught, I took the next exit, pulled over to the side of the road, and turned the engine off. The screen on the car radio gave me an option to turn OnStar off. I did so gratefully. Then I took stock of my situation. I tried to un-mute the GPS, unsuccessfully. (Not sure why. It un-muted fine the next day.) Then I looked at the screen. The GPS wanted me to turn around. Oakville evidently did not lie in my future if I kept driving down the road. 

I turned around and followed the GPS onto 407, the Electronic Toll Road (ETR). I gather that the ETR charges a flat rate of $15. I’ll find out when the charge comes through. But I needed to get to my host, so for my own sanity I took the ETR. Fifteen minutes later I pulled up to the address in Oakville and relaxed. Give me the prairies any day. And a GPS that has a voice.

Preparation

Two weeks ago I attended a board meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Now Manitoba is generally colder and more wintry than Atlanta, so I enjoyed the relative warmth of Georgia in March. I didn't reckon with the dead grass season, so I was disappointed not to find green grass and blooming trees, but the meetings were good, and I could enjoy a trip back to Atlanta sometime. While travelling, I wrote the following as a way of coping with the 1 a.m. start to my first day of travel.

Friday morning one A.M.
For to early to be ... morning.
Quick shower, coffee, toast to go
Two hours and a half on the road.
A flight waits patiently
For groggy passengers, half asleep.
An hour later we land
Short flight -- long drive --
Still too early to be morning.

A new flight waits in turn,
Soon we climb -- higher, faster, further.
Voices pierced by one strong voice
The announcement cutting through conversations
Replacing sports and casual talk with
The business of flying ... and landing.

On the ground walking and walking,
Long passages, sign after sign calls out
"Baggage" -- somewhere ahead.
Pictures spring out, huge rocks on the walls.
Home! Ngivela eMatonjeni!
Words spring out within the rock pictures.
Nkosi sikelela iAfrika.
Thoughts of home, unbidden, unexpected
Interlude before we consummate our flights
And meet.

6 March 2010

Christmas 2009

We just travelled to visit our sons and my Dad and my mother-in-law for Christmas and New Year's. It was a good trip, spending time with family from both sides. A basic feature of such a Christmas is driving -- three days to Minnesota, then Indiana, then Pennsylvania; and back to Ohio, to Indiana, then Wisconsin (just before the Minnesota border), and home. Here follows an impressionistic reflection of the trip.

Driving to snow and slush we know lie ahead.
Driving from clear skies, wide open space left behind.
Driving, opening a way to people we love and miss.

Cold behind, deepest cold. Cold ahead, damp and biting.
Driving past rock outliers, seen by peoples past.
Driving into trucks, traffic, roads of mayhem and mess.
Closer, closer to those we miss and love.

Tunnel after tunnel, deep in rock,
Outside signals blocked and lost.
Toll piles on toll as trees and mountains
Crowd around our car, driving, driving home.
Dogwood -- Chestnut -- County Road -- Cripe.
Each place a piece of home with those we love
And miss when we are home

then

Driving, driving back from turnpike to interstate
To 10 and 59 turning north.
Driving north, sun behind and cold ahead,
Darkness falling early, moon shining bright on snow,
Driving back to deepest cold clear sky
And home. (Away from those we love and miss.)

Daryl Climenhaga, 3 January 2010

O'Hare in Prose

Last Thursday we left for my niece's wedding in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Our plan was to fly from Winnipeg to Chicago, then Chicago to South Bend, where we would stay the night with our son. Then we planned to drive from SB to Harrisburg, stay with my folks and enjoy the wedding on Saturday, and finally fly back on Sunday Harrisburg to Chicago, and Chicago to Winnipeg.
Generally speaking, that's what happened; but as my previous post suggests, O'Hare did not cooperate with the program. We arrived in Chicago on schedule at 7:30 in the evening to find the gates in F packed with people waiting for delayed flights. A weather system was bringing huge rain to a large area south of Chicago (and to Chicago), which meant that flights from Cincinnati (for example) were late, and flights on from O'Hare were delayed.

We quickly joined the delays, first from 9:15 to 10 pm, then from 10 to 11 pm. Finally we boarded our flight, and two hours late for the 25 minute hop across to South Bend seemed not too bad. But of course the evening was only beginning. As we sat at the gate, and sat, the captain announced first that a weakness had been noted in the floor near the door. Then he told us that the weakness was "within specifications" and we would take off. Then we learned that the weakness was worse than thought. Finally we deplaned (with some relief), and went back to Gate F12. Finally came the announcement that the flight was cancelled.

Lois went down to the specified gate to get a voucher for a hotel and make plans for the next day. I waited at the gate for our bags, two carry-ons that had been tagged and placed under the plane. Then I realized that I had the boarding passes Lois needed to make arrangements. A quick trot the quarter mile between us carried the passes to Lois, and relieved some of the building tension I felt. No bags. I went back to Lois and talked a bit, then returned to the gate to wait for our bags. Then we were told that the bags would be delivered to baggage area 6 in terminal 1. I went back to find Lois, and she was gone!

A female attendant at the desk checked the wash room for me, eliciting a voice from somewhere inside, "I'm not Lois!" Then the attendant who had given Lois our vouchers recognized me and told me that she had gone to baggage area 6, so I set off again at a brisk trot through a now deserted O'Hare. Out through security, on down the stairs, to the lower level of Terminal 1.
Here I found Lois, along with 40 or so other irate passengers. Apparently our luggage was to be held, and then sent off to South Bend the next day, where we could pick it up. While we milled about Lois told me that we had a voucher for the hotel, and that we could take the next bus to South Bend at about 7 in the morning. It was now after 1:30 am, and the time was moving.
Finally our luggage appeared at baggage area 2, relieving the growing frustration of passengers on the edge of rioting. We took our bags and crossed to the bus terminus. There we found that the first bus to South Bend left at 5:15, just over three hours later. So we forgot about the hotel and rested as well as we could.

Two young girls just back from Mexico shivered on a nearby bench, until a car arrived to take them off. I talked with JJ, a former football player from the Bronx headed back to his old university's homecoming. He had flown from New York to Detroit, then to Chicago, and now was waiting for a bus to take him to some friends in Portage. An even more convoluted journey than our own!

At 5 am we boarded the bus, and left at 5:15. Lois slept almost the full three hours on the bus, and I slept for an hour or two. At 9:20 we pulled onto the Notre Dame campus and looked around for our son to pick us up. I had woken him from a deep sleep with directions for where we would get off. When he woke, his handwritten note said cryptically "Notre Dame Holy Cross 9:20". Missing was the word "intersection" between the two street names. So he went to the Holy Cross College on the Notre Dame campus, where there was a bus terminus.
Meanwhile, Lois and I stood in a wet and rainy morning, in a wet and chilly open air bus terminus. Across from us at the main gate of the campus was a guard, who invited us into his heated shelter, called our son for us (on his cell), and soon we were at our son's apartment.
The journey was almost over. After a shower and breakfast, we got into the car and left for Harrisburg -- 10 hours through constant rain. A final twist came as we left the turnpike, five minutes from Dad's house. Lois reached for the ticket to give to the attendant at the toll booth, but it slipped down behind the ash tray. We could see it, we could touch it, but we could not get it out. We pulled over into the toll area's parking lot and took turns trying to reach it. Finally our son hooked it, and I carried it across to the toll booth. At last we could arrive.
The wedding was wonderful. The reception lovely. Brunch on Sunday delightful. We had good family visits in between. The trip back was unnaturally smooth. We arrived back in Winnipeg 20 minutes early. Every light except one was green, and less than an hour after leaving the airport we were home. A trip to remember!



Our son looking for the ticket.

A tree outside our son's apartment.

Another tree outside the apartment.

Resting in the bus depot at O'Hare.