Goodbye

Goodbye faithful readers. I am moving my posts to skorpisto65.blogspot.com

Sauna

Sauna – An Epic Poem
by
James Bramwell 1949

You Roman Lords and Perfumed Turks,
You greasy, fat and favored few
Whose double chins are carnal sins,
The Sauna is no place to stew
And turn your sipping into dripping.
Hell is too hot for you!

And you, Companions of the Bath,
Seeking some patent sudorific,
Though you exude where you protrude,
This is not your specific!
Here men are wet with honest sweat
Like pearls in the Pacific.

You whiskered men with glowing noses
That bloom like sops-in-wine – Alas!
The issues of your florid tissues
Cannot make your souls less crass.
Not for the blotto is this motto:
In Sauna Sanitas!

The Sauna hut was open, its rough-hewn logs
Bare as the chapel of some fierce reform
Breathing the clean austerity and peace
Of the dripping forest purged by an autumn storm.

Upon the threshold timbers our blunted clumsy
Ski-boots trod, and the iron echo ripped
The silence of the bath-house. Metal-shod
They struck the sounding boards, till we had stripped

And hung our clothes, still dusty with the stars,
On pegs of rusted iron. Then barefoot, free,
We ran on tip-toe, shivering and keen
As bathers to confront the breaking sea

Into the Steam-Room . . .

Then the soul of Paavo’s hardy race arose
To the narrow threshold of his lighted gaze,
Defiant, sniffing destiny, like those
First Finns who drove their shaggy beasts to graze

Westwards across the tawny-bladed plains
Of Muscovy: then ceased their wandering
In a land of lakes where the vowel-sound of rains
Turned language green and bards discovered Spring.

Blood the returning
Stranger to the vein
Burning burning
Fire and frost
Sends mercury to warn the brain
of tissue kindled in its train
With a glow long lost . . .
At last the reddened filament
Makes aching limbs forget. Content
The shrivelled salamander – mind –
Awakening uncurls to find
It slept in fire, oblivious of pain.

Damp as a fever jungle, steaming hot,
The spirit of the Sauna rushed to sear
My brimming eyes and draw a tight garrotte

With unseen noose spun out of atmosphere,
And spite touched off a fuse of memory:
ALL HOPE ABANDON YE WHO ENTER HERE!

But growing greater I breathed it into me
Till through the mist the dim Inferno stood
In pallid light that flickered fitfully

From a ragged wick: four wavy walls of wood:
A ceiling of rough logs to catch the vapours
And make the cloud of wingless insects brood

Upon the ledge erected for the bather:
A stove, heaped up with stones, heated below:
Four washing tubs and a copper scoop to slake the

Burning ledge and goad the stones to throw
The stings of steam their rising temper bred:
This was Paavo’s Purgatorio.

And Paavo leapt up from his bed:
“Satan! It’s growing cold” he said.
Six times he filled the copper scoop
And flung more water on the stones:
Six times they hissed as if dry bones
Joined up again to form a loop

And raised bleached vertebrae and spat
Forked tongues of steam . . .

Then over me a tidal wave
Of heat broke suddenly. I lay
And let my flesh dissolve
And the burning substance of my thighs
Turned to rivers as I closed my eyes . . .

The world revolved.

Flushed with the chastening of Purgatorial fire
We departed, clean as souls that have shed their
mortal sin . . .

My Father’s Eyes

It has been kind of odd lately, that I have been seeing my dad. Did I mention that he passed away in December … of 1985? It’s not that I see him sitting at the kitchen table or perched on the dresser in the bedroom or passing through walls, as one would expect when a story starts out like this but mostly when I happen to see my own eyes in the rear view mirror of the car. “Oh, hi dad, what’s new”?

Dad had the nicest, sky blue eyes that you ever saw. Not like mine at all. Mine come from mom’s side of the family, kinda green. Now that I have reached the decade age that I last remember him, it has become spooky how similar the wrinkles have become. And I appear to have lots to say to the old man. “Did ya see that game; Canada beat the Russians but lost to the USA in the Gold Medal round?” And speaking of the USA, “What do you think of the idiot they elected for president?” These are just a few of the things we discussed almost on a daily basis, way back when.

I’ve also started seeing my dad the way I saw him as a kid. He was 33 when I was born so I really only remember his features from when he was about 38 or 39 years old. Now I see flashes of dad in my son Shane who is now 38. It seems to be a continuum that covers the years from start to finish. None of these flashbacks are identical, spitting images but are nevertheless close enough to trigger that memory. Oh wow. Hi dad, what’s new?

Dad and I did a lot of work together. He taught me how to fix cars, build houses and how to take care of a family. I worked hard to be equal in my father’s eyes. I learned to work as a partner when building; to anticipate what was needed; to keep up with the pace and rhythm. He was no doubt proud when I could do that; when I became a union carpenter; and when I got a scholarship to SFU; when I started teaching. And when I needed a hand, he was there. Hey dad, can you give me a ride. He and I had long rides – to Prince George, to California, to New York.

I’ve never seen my mom lurking about in the same way as dad. I would see reminders of mom in the whole when some woman looks or behaves the way I remember mom but that was always in a single situation, and I remember her laugh, not her eyes. Dad has begun to reappear regularly. I will have to stop glancing in the mirror or start talking to myself. Hi dad, what’s new? Well, did ya see….

Boating Lifestyle

It’s the lift of the bow to the swell as she clears the harbour
It’s the sparkle of the sun on the myriad of cat’s paws
It’s the boom of the sail as she bears off
It’s the rumble of the diesels under way
The smell of coffee on a diesel stove
The clean smell of the salt air
The wind on your cheek

It’s slotting into anchor amongst others in a quiet cove
It’s kissing the dock in a crosswind (and they’re watching)
It’s feeling your way on a foggy shore
It’s when your DR matches the Fix
The chatter of the bow wave
The straight wake
The sunset

It’s being the inside boat on a raftup of old friends
It’s the smell of warm bread in the cabin of new friends
It’s the laughter of children plunging off the rail
It’s taking the dog ashore
The clack of the raven
The soar of the raptor
The breath of the whale

It’s the rumble of the diesel warming while you plan the day
It’s having to move when the tug came to move the boom
It’s curled in a warm cabin and blowing 40 outside the cove
It’s the sound of the rain on the deck
The turn of the tide
The run down wind
The harbour home

Dennis

This isn’t so much about Dennis as about what the whole Dixon family meant to me, when they blew into town in 1963. A person doesn’t see it at the time but looking back after fifty some years, the turning points in one’s life are a little easier to see.

Dennis showed up for football practice when school started in 1963, along with another American kid Paul Condos. The Dixons had moved into a house off Mundy Road in Coquitlam about a mile from where I lived so it was easy to spend a lot of time together. The generosity that marked all the Dixons started there and I probably spent more time hanging out there than I did at home. I was almost 18 and had wheels and Dennis had turned 16 so we cruised all over.

Among us boys, Dennis was never known as Dennis. He was just Dixon as I was Korpisto, or at least some approximation of that. So when Dixon joined us, high school picked up a bit as he was very funny and quick. We had a good football team so life was good and the school year whizzed by.

In the summer of ’64 Dixon and I were looking for work and went to see the chief clerk at Great Northern Railway freight depot in Vancouver, where Don Dixon was station agent. Harold MacDonald was the chief clerk at that time and he had a magnificent belly. He had played professional football in his time but now the muscle had continued to grow until it entered the room before Harold did. “Sorry boys”, Harold said, “I don’t have any jobs open right now but tell me what you can do”. I looked around the office and saw men at desks typing and just as an afterthought as we were being escorted to the door, I said that we could type. “Well why didn’t you say so right off, you can start on Monday to cover off for holidays”.

Dixon and I started off in the freight office and that’s where I stayed and Dennis moved on to working with the switch crews making up trains. This was great for two high school kids. We were expected to do a man’s job in a man’s world and had all the responsibility that it meant. I made $2.00 an hour at a time when two bucks would fill your gas tank, 150 bucks would buy you a good used car and a new Chevy was two grand.

For the school year in 1964, Jim Fulton and Ron Warner transferred in and we became an awesome group. This was our final high school year, we all played football, cruised Vancouver and generally had a good time without a lot of booze and no drugs, in those days.

In the fall of 1965, Dixon, Warner, and I started at SFU on the first canadian university team to give athletic scholarships. Fulton went to work for a year but remained one of the group. At SFU, Doug Williams joined us and in 1967 or ’68, Dennis, Doug and Jim decided to rent an apartment together and I think I guilted them into including me.

Den and I travelled a bit. We spent a few days with Barb and her room mate in West Seattle. This visit was defined by Simon & Garfunkel whose Bridge Over Troubled Waters album had just come out. In 1968, Dennis worked for the GN back in St. Paul where the Dixon family had relocated. When Dixon was ready to return to SFU, I went east on the Empire Builder and we came back together.

And so it went. We met girlfriends at university, started to work in different places, started to move around the country, went to different schools but were still in touch. Doug got married and moved out. I was best man at Dixon’s wedding as he was at mine. I moved to the Okanagan in 1971 and over time we all lost touch. Jim Fulton was the constant. He was working now for the Department of Highways and travelled around, stopping in whenever he was in the neighbourhood.

It wasn’t until Jim passed away in 2002 that we reconnected and Dennis reappeared with a family. Yowzer!

What started as a memorial to Jim became the Old Boys’ yearly cruise with Dennis and Doug on the beautiful Altano.

Goodbye old friend.

Working in California

In 1984, I headed to California to work. There was no work to be had in BC and I had knocked on all the doors in town that I could think of. At that time lots of Canadian construction workers and many more from Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona were moving to the San Francisco Bay area where things were booming. The high tech boom was on its way and Silicon Valley was replacing the citrus orchards.

I cleared into the Redwood City local of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and was put to work right away. The trades in California were all unionized so it didn’t matter if you were working on tract housing or high rise buildings you were making the same wage. At that time in BC, a unionized carpenter was making $10.00 per hour while in California the wage was $22.80 and the Canadian buck was at 70 cents US. I was clearing, after taxes, $800.00 per week. It would be another decade before I made that kind of money in Canada.

I was fortunate that when I was in high school, I had gotten a job with Great Northern Railway, an American company. All of us Canadians had to get an American Social Security number. As a result, even though I was neither a resident nor had a “Green Card”, I did have a legitimate SS number and when the time came I just paid my taxes like any citizen. Many years later, when I became a pensioner, the two years that I paid taxes in the US resulted in a small American pension as well.

My first job in California was on a large tract housing site right on San Francisco Bay. I was doing finishing work inside. Canadian carpenters do the whole job, from foundations to finishing. In the US, everybody specializes. Foundation guys just work on foundations, framers just frame up, and finishing carpenters just work inside.

That job finished up in a couple of months and I was then sent to work for a company that owned the premises of the world headquarters for Visa. This was a series of four, three storey buildings of approximately 20,000 square feet on a floor, located oddly enough in Cañada, California. There was always a floor empty in these buildings so a floor at a time would be emptied, completely redone and the people from the next floor would be moved in. It would take four or five years to do all the floors and then it would be time to modernize again and Visa has lots of money, right? The property owner had a ten-story office tower nearby which had a completely restored Studebaker carriage in the lobby. My boss was a Swede-Finn and after a short while, I found myself in charge of a crew of three labourers and two carpenters. In California, they only have a morning coffee break that is paid for but nothing in the afternoon when you probably need it the most. So I just held an afternoon coffee break much to the consternation at first of the men. They thought they would be fired. But it all went well. I left that job when I returned home for Christmas.

I had a few jobs on the side since workers were in such short supply and $20 cash was the going rate. I was looking for another place to stay as the next job was building a new Neiman Marcus store in Palo Alto and it was a long commute from Pacifica. An old family friend, Ola Jallinoja, had a business installing hardwood floors and he had just done the floors in a 1920s mansion on University Boulevard in Palo Alto. The Millers were looking for a carpenter to help with the rebuild and the place had a garage that had been turned into an apartment. That was perfect. I exchanged work for rent and moved in. I had traded my BC pickup for a Volvo station wagon so I fit right in.

The crew at the Neiman Marcus site were all from the Tri-Cities area of Washington State. They needed someone who could hang metal door frames and heavy wooden doors. Apparently they were having a hard time finding someone who could hang a door straight in a reasonable amount of time. I made a large square from a sheet of plywood and already had a 4′ magnetic level so I was hanging door frames every half hour. I was used to using a cordless drill which these guys hadn’t really worked with but it wasn’t long before the supervisor went out and bought a bunch when he saw how convenient they were. Another tool they hadn’t seen was a two-wheeled door dolly. Reijo put me onto that and I built one as soon as I knew that I was going to hang several hundred doors. After that, I was the door expert and hung all the frames, doors and installed all the door hardware in the building. I was sent by the company for part of a week to the California headquarters of IBM to install combination door lock hardware on some of their more secure offices. It was kind of a kick as all these locks were prominently marked on the underside “Made in Canada”.

When the store was nearing completion, the same company transferred me to a site at Moffat Field. This was a US Navy airfield that had housed some dirigibles in a pair of hangars that were each eight acres in size and two hundred feet high. They were in fact so high that during airshows hot-air balloon rides were given inside the hangars. The air field was home to a fleet of Orion submarine detecting aircraft and every fifteen or twenty minutes one would land as another took off. Also based there were the U2 spy aircraft. This was prior to intelligence gathering by satellite and the U2 plane would cruise at an altitude of 60,000 feet to do what it did. It was a treat to watch them take off as they had an immense wing span and they would just get high enough off the runway to turn the nose straight up and power right out of sight.

Our work site was at the adjoining Ames Space Centre. We were building an immense vacuum chamber in which satellites could be tested. This was a top secret facility at the time and only citizens were supposed to be working there. Nobody asked if I was or I wasn’t so I just kept on working. The doors to the labs weighed 400 pounds each because they were filled with gravel to discourage eavesdropping. The whole facility had two immense wind tunnels that were initially used to test aircraft aerodynamics but it became a part of NASA and was used for rocket research. I left that job when I went home for a visit.

The last job that I had in California in 1985, before I returned home for good, was building a recreation complex for Hensel-Phelps Corporation, the second largest construction firm in the US. The rec complex was in Mountainview. This was in the very centre of Silicon Valley and high tech businesses were springing up on all sides. The area had all been mixed market farms and citrus orchards until the latest boom. Mountainview was adjacent to Palo Alto and Stanford University; close to Stanford were the headquarters for Hewlett Packard; Intel was in nearby Santa Clara; Apple was in Cupertino. These towns are all adjoining and were the hot bed of high tech activity in the mid 1980s. Definitely an exciting place to live and work at that time.

Christmas Fridge

When my appliances start to whine, so do I, in harmony. Our refrigerator started up a throaty moan whenever the compressor ran and then the peanut butter got runny and the dairy butter got soft. So my good wife and I went looking for a fridge today, six days before Christmas.

I had dug up the papers on our present fridge to check the ten year warranty. That ran out thirteen months ago. So, thought I, let’s get the darn thing fixed. That has to be cheaper than buying a new one. I called up the only Appliance Repair in town. Nope not worth fixing. They can’t remember the last time they fixed a fridge. I guess it isn’t an appliance. Silly me.

We had paid $1765 for it because we had wanted a bottom freezer model and that was pretty pricey in 2003. Today the prices ran from $900 to call-your-swiss-banker. For 900 bucks you could get the plain jane with little more than camp-cooler convenience. Now the new fridges have “French Doors” that have “gallon shelves”, starting at $1299. I started to think that my gallon shelves could hold that gallon of Andrés Baby Duck just fine. At $1599, the ice maker was plumbed into your house and if you wanted water in the door, well, $1899.

At $1999, you had mobile phone access to your refrigerator. To talk to your turnips? “Is it too nippy my darlings? Let me adjust the temperature”. Seriously, the price kept climbing from there. There were doors that had doors; they had crispers and fruit fresheners; fruit unspoilers; meat drawers; dairy drawers; lighted drawers; halogen lights and LED lights.

At the entrance to the store they had the built-in mother of all refrigerators. It had French doors but each door was four feet across and six feet high. When you opened the doors, lights flashed and angels sang. The inside was larger than our main bathroom. The store had a room behind a velvet curtain where your banker could discuss the terms. Yowser. Capitalism at its best.

The last time I built a house, about thirty years ago, all the framing lumber for the house cost $800. The whole heating system was a thousand bucks. The entire plumbing – pipes, fixtures, and labour was $1500. The entire fireplace and chimney came in at $1500. Small wonder that new homes here regularly go into the half million and up range, if the fridge starts out at a grand.

The store that had all of these fridges also had a fridge repair guy onsite. Cal. Now my best friend. He asked whether the freezer was still freezing. Yes. Then it’s just a defrost problem. The cold air is being blocked from getting to the fridge part. Don’t buy a new one yet until you turn it off and let it thaw out. Cal just made my Christmas happier.

Border Crossings

Crossing international borders is always fraught with a little nervousness. The Border Services answer to no one and they can be flinty eyed and armed. In 1984 I couldn’t find any work at home. I mean any work. After knocking on doors all around town, I decided to head to California, so I had lots of opportunity to cross the 49th parallel and into the US. An illegal alien. Of this planet but an alien nonetheless.

At that time, the San Francisco Bay area was booming. Silicon Valley was just being built and that high tech money was stoking a building boom that seemed endless. Lots of Canadians were going to work in California, as well as workers from Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. Most Canadian construction workers did not have a “Green Card” or residency permit of any sort. The guys I knew just “cleared out” of their International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners local in Canada and cleared into the Redwood City local or some other. When asked for their Social Security number, they just gave their Canadian SIN. It had the same number of digits as the US but broken into 3-3-3 digits instead of the American 3-2-4.

By a stroke of luck, I had an American SS number. When I was still in high school and looking for summer work in 1963, I was hired on by the Great Northern Railway because my best friend’s dad was Freight Agent in Vancouver and because I could type. The GNR was an American railroad and in fact was the first railroad to cross the continent to the Pacific. It was built by James Hill, a Canadian, who was supposed to have built the CPR but was edged out by John A. MacDonald in favour of an American builder. He was so ticked that he decided to build his own railway in the US and beat the CPR to the Pacific.

All of us Canucks had to get an American number in the event that we transferred into the States to work on the railway. When the time came for me to go to California, although I didn’t have a green card, I had a legitimate Social Security number. As soon as I cleared into the Redwood City local, I was put to work. The first place was a large tract housing site right on the Bay – Pelican Cove Estates. I lived in my sister Tutta’s motorhome to begin with and on long weekends I would head back up to Canada to see Betty and the kids.

My first trip home became a border problem. I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through so I bought a return ticket to Vancouver from San Francisco. When it was time to return, the American customs inspection was in Vancouver prior to boarding the plane. The first question to be asked was why I had a return ticket. Was I working in the US? After a half hour of questioning in the back room I was refused entry and sent away. My name was entered in the computer but in those days the machines weren’t so interconnected as they are today. Dad was living in New Westminster so I called him up and he then drove me across the border to Seattle. In those days we just needed to show some photo id to get across in a car. I was able to change my ticket in Seattle and fly back to San Francisco. But my name was in the computer.

On my next visit home, I flew San Francisco – Seattle, planning to hitch to Vancouver. I checked out the car rental lineup and overheard an older couple renting a car to Vancouver. As it was getting dark, I volunteered to drive if they would take me along and that’s how it worked out. Back across the 49th. Returning to the US, I was delivering a 4×4 Dodge Power Wagon truck from Howard and Satu to nephew Steve. The truck did really look kind of hippyish and I was bearded and wearing a Mackinaw. As bad luck would have it, the nuclear submarine base in Bangor, Washington was waiting for the “White Train” which delivered nuclear warheads. The border guards were expecting protesters from Canada and there I was. This was another case of stepping into the back room and being questioned. I thought that my name would show up in the computer from the previous crossing attempt but as it didn’t come up, I was grudgingly allowed to proceed.

At that time I was living in a trailer on a co-worker’s property in the little coastal town of Pacifica. I had literally just come in the door after the 20 hour drive from the border when there was a thumping at the door followed by “Open up, Police”. I thought that this was it and I would be deported. As it happened the police were looking for an escapee from a detention centre nearby who had jumped over the wall with no clothes and every property was being searched to see if he had come by for clothes. Nobody was interested in me.

Many more border crossings have come and gone since then. None have proved difficult but have always been with a heightened level of nervousness. Whether it’s the fear of being turned back when you really need to go or something else, I don’t know. Of course, in this time of terrorist threats everybody is taking security seriously. You can count on more flinty eyed looks from the Border Services.

Looking Back

It used to be, when I was young, that I would count the minutes and hours waiting for some event. Always looking forward, never back. Looking back never carried the significance that looking forward did. Counting the minutes until the school-day was done, until the school-year was over, until school was done for good. You see where I’m going. Everything was looking forward – school, job, family, retirement.

Well, retirement came, rather quickly if you ask me. And suddenly it’s no longer looking forward but looking back. Retrospect doesn’t happen with minutes and hours either. It’s a decade at a time. It really is funny how that works. Yes, each decade was significant in its own way but still, there was so much crammed into each that you would think looking back could be minced a little finer than ten-year periods.

The first decade, a little foggy in the first few years, was basically about survival. Childhood illness, childhood blunders and dangers, school. The second decade was a chance to take flight from the nest. New freedoms and responsibilities. From my twenties to my thirties, the third decade, was really all about learning how to get along in the hurly-burly of the workaday world. The fourth decade was young family and young career. A chance to put into practice what was learned up to now.

The age from forty to fifty, or the fifth decade, was the power decade. All the skills were firmly established and self-confidence was at an all-time high. Retirement was not even on the distant horizon, the body was still young and strong, and the work skills could be taken anywhere to do anything. The possibilities were huge. Yowser.

Suddenly, in the sixth decade, the prospect of retirement rolled up on the horizon. It really came as a bolt from the blue. Hmm! Pension. Work now became important in a different sense. How could it provide lasting benefits? Also the body showed signs of needing a gentler pace.

Now, nearing the end of the seventh decade, all the foregone decades seem to come into focus. A lot of water under the bridge? Yes. Life went in many different directions, usually with little planning but it just went where it went. All of it good. But for some reason, the previous decades stand out as ten-year milestones with their own particular colour or flavour. There was a little overlap of decades but predominantly they are remembered as their own. What will the seventh decade be remembered as? It’s too soon to tell. I will have to look back.

Forty Again

I read an article this morning, posted on Facebook, with a woman in her early forties decrying all the things she now couldn’t do: read fine print; wear sequins or mini skirts. I sympathize. Sequins have always made me feel out of focus. However, my forties decade was the most liberating of my life. Everything that had gone on before was just the preamble to turning forty.

When I was forty, I could do anything. I didn’t just feel that I could do anything, I actually could do anything. I had built boats, houses, high-rises, scientific facilities for NASA. I could use lathes and milling machines. I could forge steel, cast bronze, drive graders, back hoes, bulldozers. I could jump into a fish boat and bring it back to the dock in a current, crosswind and a sputtering engine. Put me in any situation and I was up to it.

The decades that had passed, since I left the family home, were a preparation for reaching my forties. My twenties were filled with learning the ropes, education, and gaining confidence and self-worth. My thirties were family, and work under someone’s direction. I was shy to put my own opinions forward.

But when I turned forty…look out world! The shutters came off. I wasn’t afraid to voice an opinion about anything and stick to it. I literally could do anything. Build a car, boat, train – yep. Build any kind of structure – no worries. When the apocalypse came, I could go back to basic technologies and take care of my family. When the airline pilot had a stroke, I could step in and land the plane. It’s just simple hand-eye coordination, right? I wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. When bosses would come poking around and asking silly questions, I always had an answer ready.

The decade of the fifties, for me, started to show limitations. The physical plant started to show arthritis, bad back, the reading glasses kept getting stronger. But that aside, now I had people in their forties (you know, who could do anything) working for me. They did the hard stuff and I did the head stuff. That still seemed to work.

The decade of my sixties, though not quite over, has been a time of more head and less hard. The work that I do physically can now be called puttering. What I used to do in a couple of hours now takes all day. I could, if asked, still drive a loader, grader, or even locomotive, but no one is asking anymore. If the airline pilot had a stroke now, I could still reset the computers to take us down but now I worry more about the stroke I might have squeezing into the airplane lav to pee. Fortunately, the head stuff is still working although I hear the word “crank” when I turn away. Or is it “crock”? Seems my hearing isn’t what it used to be. Although, a few weeks ago I did bring in a boat, in waves and cross wind, to kiss the dock so no passengers felt a thing. Made me feel like forty again. Yowser.