Fiat Lux

   

 Fiat Lux is a prety odd greeting, but my old buddy Bruce Fish always calls (more like yells) that out to me when he sees me.  He'll often add "let there be light".  I've come to really appreciate it.  I drove into the county dump that he runs last week, and I couldn't see him.  I finally heard him rumbling around behind a huge recylcing bin.  He yelled out a truly hearty "fiat lux" then emerged from between two dumpsters.  He said "come see this shit",  and walked over to a picnic table.
 
     Bruce had a sun shade contraption that he'd rigged up over the table and a few choice items that he'd saved from the heap.  There was a microwave, two radios, and a broken guitar.  I'm pretty sure he'll be able to fix them all.  He showed me a small park bench he was working on; it looked great.  Someone had brought it in on the weekend, and tossed into the pit.  He'd pulled it out, sanded it down, repainted the metal, and stained the wood.  "Damn Bruce - this is fine work".  He told me that he'd used paint, stain, and even brushes that people had thrown away.
   
     He had a few drinks in a cooler that his wife Rose packed.  So we chatted for a bit about his other projects, and about his family.  We finished the drinks, and I sorted out my own reclyclying. I came back to close the back hatch of my van, and the newly refurbished park bench was loaded up.  I looked at Bruce and he said: "I did that for you brother".
   
     He smiled and ran off to deal with a big pick-up truck loaded with cottage trash.  I heard him yell "fiat lux" again as I drove off.

Smitty II

Smitty had a big list of jobs, so he asked us to pitch in for the day.  French and I launched into Smitty's list: smashing up an old concrete deck, pulling nails out of some wood he wanted to burn, and repainting his garden shed.  It was quite something to see a 90+ year old man taking a few swings with the sledge hammer.   I've also never seen a man paint to precisely.  Smitty didn't waste a drop.

After the work was done he said: "The place doesn't look half bad eh boys?"   He grilled us up some homemade burgers and we sat around a little campfire.  We had a few beers and swapped a few more tales.

When he got dark he said, "You boys wanna see something?"  Smitty took us down a path out back of his place.  We walked for about five minutes to his "gunge pile".  He dumped some of his non-compostable food in a pit under a huge white pine.  Smitty shone his flashlight up into the branches. There were seven pairs of eyes up in the tree.

French said: "Damn thats alotta racoons!"

Smitty said: "No wait.  Check this out."  He shone his flashlight up even higher.  There were one more pair of eyes...bigger eyes.  Smitty explained: "That there is a fisher, smaller cousin of the wolverine; those racoons are goners."

Smitty

French and I went to see his grandfather this week.  I haven't seen him for at least a decade or so, but he looks pretty much the same.  I guessed that he was 80, but he is actually in his nineties.

I introduced myself, but he said: "Ah hell I know who yah are."  He told me to call him Smitty.  He'd slept in, so he was running a bit late.  Smitty told us: "To shoot a bit a shit.  While I do my exercises." French told him a couple of funny stories from out on the road.  Smitty chuckled along and completed the same routine that he'd done for over 60 years:

1.  Stretches and Lunges...just a few.  Limber up.
2.  50 push ups
3.  25 sit ups
4.  100 squats
5.  10-15 minute headstand

I asked him if this regiment was the key to his longevity?  Smitty laughed and said: "Ask me again in a few years."

He went over to his kitchen sink.  It was full of ice cubes.   Smitty reached down to the bottom and pulled out three beers, and said: "Ok I'm all warmed up time to get the day started."

the bacon sizzled

I got French a job for the week subbing in for me; as I'm down with bronchitis.  He was happy to have a steady day job for a solid week.  When French can't get work teaching he'll head out on the road doing some long haul trucking.  He especially likes to do this in the winter, as most of the trips take him deep south..."outta the cold".

He had a bit of an adventure last week.  French missed a turn off for a truck stop, and kept driving looking for another one instead of doubling back.  He was two hours over on the logbook so he pulled off on the road in an old parking lot of a burned out motel.  French locked up and wandered into the woods, and made a little campfire.  He always brings along his little travel guitar (a Taylor Baby).  French sat around the fire and played and sang a few songs.

There was a steady breeze so the sound of his music travelled pretty far.  He said some old fella showed up after an hour or so.  He'd heard the music and had seen the light of the campfire from his porch.  He didn't come empty handed.  This old guy had brought a cast iron frying pan, a pound of bacon, and some bread.  He asked French if he could listen to some tunes in return for breakfast.  French said: "that'd be a damn fine trade".

So the bacon sizzled and French kept playing.

After he told me the story I said "pretty good night eh?"

French replied: "yah pretty good, but the plumbing sucked."

Security

French has been working security at an old warehouse these last few months.  It is a huge rambling building.  There are a few businesses in it, but the very back is vacant.

He was doing a night round and busted a guy who was living in an old office.  French said he spotted a can of fresh cigarette butts on a fire escape.  He went up the stairs and found a guy sleeping on the floor.  French woke him up a bit later with a Tim Horton's coffee.  His name was Marko and he told French his story.  He was in his mid twenties, and had immigrated from the former Yugoslavia.  He had Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian blood, so his family had fled the civil war.  The breaking point had come when a bullet had smashed through their wall and zinged right over the dinner table.  His family left that night.

In Canada his luck had not improved.  His father had died early on in a car wreck, and Marko had been left to fend for his mother.  She too had died just this past summer of Lupus.  Marko had been let go a couple of weeks ago from a seasonal job as a snowplow operator due to the lack of snow this year.  The rent was overdue, and he lost his apartment.  He'd been sleeping, and staying out of the cold by riding on the crosstown buses, but the Transpo cops had caught onto him.

French believed his story, and was able to convince the owner of the warehouse to let Marko stay, and to even let Marko have his security job.  French said, "It worked out for the both of us. I hate working security!"

On brothers, community, and Dutch kissing

Every time I head out with French, especially in Eastern Ontario, we seem to meet someone he knows.  This happens anywhere between Ottawa and Kingston, and sometimes further afield.  I know a great many of these people, but there are always more.  I was trying to break this down today as I drove into work.

For one thing French calls all of these people "brother", and he gives them a long hearty handshake.  I feel he gets this from his years of hanging out in wrestling locker rooms.  This traditional greeting has gone a long way.  He also carries around a pack of smokes, and he'll always offer one up if the "brother" is a smoker.  Most often he'll also offer to buy them a coffee, or a pint.  French also seems to get them talking, and then do a lot of listening.

If he meets a woman that he knows he'll greet them with three kisses on their cheeks.  He'll laugh and say "I'm not Dutch, but I love their greeting".   Once we met a pretty woman, and French was slow to offer his usual salutation; she chastised him, as she offered her cheek: "where are my kisses?"

French sure knows how to anchor friendships, and build community - Brother.

Being Chill

I'm often described as a "chill" teacher by my students.  I've been pondering this label, and I've made at least one small link to how this "chillness" was born.

Back in my high school in rural Ontario one could get time off just by saying, or people even thinking, that you were hunting.  There were always a few days during duck and/or deer season where it was acceptable to be away.  "He's hunting" is pretty much all you'd have to tell the teacher; not even a note was required.  There were too many kids away for them to chase us all down.

French was not a hunter, but he knew his buds would cover for him.  Pancake let all the teachers know that French was "hunting" and he was gold.  I saw right away that French was ditching school, so I snuck out midweek to see what he was up too.  He was in his shed.  There was a small fire going to push back the October cold.  French was on his bunk reading East of Eden.  French held up a finger, read a few more lines, took a drag from his cigarette and handed me a beer.

I asked him "Whatcha reading?"  He said "Steinbeck"  He'd started reading it the previous week while on detention outside the VPs office.  The previous detainee had left in on a table.  French got hooked once the character Cathy was introduced: "This Cathy girl scares the living shit outta me."   French skipped because there was an open excuse, and a chance for him to be alone and just read, play some guitar, and listen to some tunes.

I always remember this moment, and chill, prior to chastising skippers.