Trap Tragedy

I have a friend who lives in a small town on the Ottawa River in Ontario. Early this December, she and her beloved dog were out walking in the woods when, all of a sudden her dog, who had wandered on ahead was heard yelping in distress a few metres off the trail. My friend approached her pet only to find him completely entangled in a trap, gasping for breath and writhing in pain. It was a gruesome sight and one not easily forgotten. The dog died after a few torturous minutes.

Of course this isn’t the first time such a tragedy has occurred in the woods of North America and licensed trapping is still a legitimate business or activity. It is controlled by various government agencies that require all traps to be readily identified with a marker or, in this case, an inverted bucket. That’s great if you are an adult human but quite unlikely to deter a curious canine, or even an inquisitive young child.

My friend had been enjoying her walk in an area regularly hiked by the locals—in the winter cross-country skiers and Snowmobilers make good use of it as well. And yet there was not a single sign posted warning the public that trap lines may be set and that pet owners would be advised to keep their animals on a leash and their children in view.

I share the opinion of many who believe that trapping is a completely outdated, cruel and unnecessary activity in our culture in this day and age. However, it is a legally endorsed operation and so, for the time being, we are probably forced to accept it. Would it be too much to ask for the placement of a few warning signs?

My heart goes out to my friend. Her loss is devastating and the residual images of the ordeal will haunt her for a long time to come. When she is feeling better, she will step up, tell her story and make a pitch to the appropriate agencies to make sure this kind of unforeseeable tragedy does not happen to anyone else’s beloved companion.

Her pup was only eight months old. He did not deserve to be betrayed by humans in such a barbaric fashion.

The Icy Beastie

My son, a student at UNBC, was recently in a vehicular accident. Fortunately, he walked away physically unscathed and, like the responsible young man that he is, immediately contacted ICBC—the Icy Beastie—to initiate his claim.
As an undergrad university student, he has always retained his permanent address in his hometown, Nelson. This is where he comes to roost, where he votes, where any government documentation is sent, etc. Prince George is where he attends school. Most students, until they are established and working in the world, follow this practice to keep their home address consistent throughout their nomadic years.
My son purchased his car insurance in Prince George and, of course, provided his Nelson address as his permanent address.
The insurance agent obligingly sold him coverage—we thought—and happily took his money.
Now that my son has filed a claim we discover, all of a sudden, that he should have paid a higher premium because his vehicle spends most of its time in a territory outside Nelson where, apparently, coverage is more expensive. The insurance adjuster who interviewed him after his accident, told him he should step up and accept the responsibility of his error, i.e. purchasing inadequate insurance coverage.
I hardly think it was, in fact, my son’s error. However, he is willing to pay the difference.
Unfortunately, the adjuster chose not to let him off that easily. He applied a penalty that allowed him to multiply the shortfall by ten. In other words, if one inadvertently underpaid by six hundred dollars, for example, it would immediately become a six thousand dollar punitive payment!
Outrageous, unreasonable corporate bullying—that’s how I see it.
Surely the happy little agent who sold my son his policy is culpable. Surely he would have noticed the Nelson address and asked my son why he had come all the way to Prince George—a two-day drive from Nelson—to renew his auto insurance. But he didn’t and, in my opinion, failed to perform his due diligence by informing his client of the geographical ramifications of permanent and temporary addresses. And my son, who is not studying insurance agency law, was obviously unaware of this potential problem—as are most other laypeople I have spoken with since.
It’s another David ‘n Goliath story. I hate them. I really hate being in them. But, most of all, I can’t stand seeing my child struggling through a quagmire of rude and smug adults, corporate secrets and sanctioned extortion. Pedantic bureaucracy in action … and ‘they’ (the bureaucrats) do it for no other reason than because they can.
Eventually, after several phone calls made by both my son and his father (on occasions such as these, mothers are better off staying out of the way), the initial underpayment was revisited and considerably reduced so that the penalty was easier to bear—financially, at least. I still think, however, that the agent who sold the policy to my son should have acknowledged his oversight, apologized and made up the shortfall.
You’ll pay top price for insurance for the rest of your life, but don’t think for a moment that you are getting assurance in the package!

If You're Over 55 ...

A couple of years ago my mother, a devout follower of CBC Radio, called me (I am her chronically underemployed daughter) to tell me she had been listening to a programme about a woman in BC who had a website for job seekers over the age of 55. Although I was still a year shy of that magic age of discounted motel rates and drugstore specials, I registered on the site. Since that time, 55PlusPros has attracted over two thousand ‘mature’ job seekers. Unfortunately however, few employers have chosen to tap into this pool rich in talent, experience and wisdom.

Recently, I spoke with Sherry Baker, sole proprietor of 55PlusPros. She is an energetic, savvy septuagenarian who took over the business three years ago. Like many of her age and stage in life, she has reinvented herself several times. Baker obtained a degree in Home Economics in 1960, degrees in Education and Business Administration in her mid-forties and then bravely returned to academia in her early fifties to obtain a Master’s degree in Applied Behavioural Science. She has always been a proactive member in her community; has served as a councilwoman in Chilliwack, BC; has raised and launched three children; sits on a variety of boards and committees; and works as a group facilitator with various community and non-profit organizations. Most recently, she took to the stage performing in a local production of “Simple Diagnosis”.

Our conversation soon revealed Ms. Baker as a woman on the go and a force to be reckoned with. We began talking about her 55PlusPros website and some of the challenges she has faced.

We discussed the pros and cons of hiring and working with ‘mature’ employees … is the workplace ready for us?

Who are these people who, instead of working on their golf swings, are working on their resumes?

How can we assure potential employers that we are willing, able and really quite useful to have around?

Ms. Baker was already in the process of overhauling her website and set up when we began our discussions. To attract more employers, she has decided to waive the fee they previously paid to cruise the talent pool. Instead, Ms. Baker will rely on independent advertising to support the site. She is also adding more content to the site including links to articles and other resources that are of interest to registrants.

I am a freelance writer and Ms. Baker very generously offered to give me a small corner on her website which will provide a direct link to articles I plan to write about the plight and pleasure of looking for work in the current marketplace and how we, as older contributors, must polish ourselves up a bit. I have dedicated a new page on my own website to accommodate these articles and hope that you will read them and then share your comments, thoughts and personal experiences with me.

Please visit Ms. Baker’s site: www.55pluspros.ca to learn more about the timely and well-conceived services she provides.

Visit me at: www.katebridger.ca and click on ‘Over 55’ to see what I’m going on about.

Shined or Shunned

Left: "Lady In Pink", Fabric Art by Kate Bridger

Any moment now, hundreds of pimped and polished vintage wheels will be pulling into Nelson BC for the seventh annual Queen City Cruise. They will arrive, accompanied by their proud owners, from Idaho and Washington State, British Columbia and southern Alberta.

By Saturday morning they will line three blocks of Baker Street parked with the precision and discipline of a military airbase, each vehicle posing at exactly the same angle as its neighbour. The resulting rows of perfectly polished grills grinning towards the centre of the street will be reminiscent of the fixed sparkly smiles worn by a chorus line of beauty pageant contestants.

I love this spectacle. It turns an ordinary downtown thoroughfare into a sculpture garden. I’m not particularly interested in what’s under the hood. I’m far more impressed by the pleasing curve of a Rubenesque fender, or multi-coloured reflections swirling around a gleaming hubcap as if captured in a child’s kaleidoscope.

Owners hover around their protégés like over-protective parents with chamois cloths and polish at the ready to banish errant fingerprints and blemishes. Spectators are found in all sorts of contorted positions, lying on their bellies on the tarmac, or kneeling down on one knee hoping to capture the perfect image with their digital cameras. On a sunny day, this celebration of polished chrome practically lights up the town.

For old timers, the car show is a walk down memory lane—speakers up and down the street pump out vintage ‘50s rock and roll to accompany the experience. Youngsters listen to parents and grandparents brag about first cars, first dates and first kisses back in the days when ‘high speed’ was still measured in miles per hour, not megabytes per second.

Cars, trucks and lorries have fascinated me since I was a child. I had a pretty good collection of Matchbox toys growing up. They’re all lost now. Perhaps that is why I’m also attracted to abandoned vehicles—the ones that appear to grow up out of the forest floor, or peer through long grass in a field by the side of the road. They are as sculptural and intriguing as their pampered counterparts, but in a very different way.

Left to rot in a field they’re quickly picked over as if circling vultures had swooped down to pluck out their eyes and peck at their flesh. Headlights are smashed or gone, stuffing spills out of gaping wounds in the upholstery and eager saplings wrap themselves around the grill like they were climbing a garden trellis.

Sometimes I want to grab hold of the frail and rickety skeletons of these former family wagons and demand an explanation: “who did this to you?” Is this long-term parking space the result of some horrific accident; or did the last owner deliberately drive to this spot, gather up the last of his personal belongings from the glove compartment, remove the key from the ignition, turn his back and walk away? Was it done under cover of darkness? Were his friends waiting by the side of the road to give him a ride home?

It’s a sad and beautiful sight full of textures, transitions and tales best left to our imaginations.

Real Fine Deals

Recently, I was driving through Hope, British Columbia, on Highway 1. The air was heavy with the smoke of forest fires burning to the north. Above the highway, barely readable through the thick atmosphere, was an illuminated sign threatening fines of $345.00 to any persons caught lighting campfires during the extreme fire danger. It seemed like an odd amount—why not at least make it a rounder number; say $500.00?

The City of Vancouver can fine pet owners who fail to pick up their pets’ pooh up to $2,000.00. That seems a bit harsh. While a bit of dog doo can wreck a good a pair of Gucci shoes, a campfire lit in the midst of a tinder-dry forest, has the potential to claim lives.

All this got me thinking about fines in general—who sets them and how the punitive amounts are determined. Unfortunately, my enquiries hit roadblocks after one or two googles and a couple of ‘phone calls and I couldn’t afford the time and effort it was going to take to get past the gatekeepers.

However, I did look into some of the other seemingly random fees imposed upon misdemeanants around the world:

~ If you really can’t bear picking up Spot’s doings, move to San Francisco—the most it will cost you there is C$319.00.

~ Public spitting is best done in Dubai at a cost of around C$148.00, compared to more than double that in Singapore.

~ Littering can be an expensive hobby costing you the equivalent of between $20 and $20,000 Cdn. in Athens, Greece; a mere C$100.00 in Britain; and up to C$1,000.00 in California (making abandoned dog pooh still a very good deal in San Francisco).

~ Edmonton, Alberta, charges up to C$250.00 for pedestrians who insist upon weaving their way through oncoming traffic to get to the other side of the street. In Singapore, jaywalking can cost up to C$1,500.00 and a mere C$180.00 in Texas. For half that price, if you happen to be driving through Houston, you can run a red light instead.

~ If, due to some serious lapse in concentration, you find yourself driving in the wrong direction on a divided highway in British Columbia, it will cost you approximately $109.00 to climb over the divider to put yourself right. Also, according to ICBC, you don’t want to drive over a fire hose as that could cost you $81.00 and, if you ‘coasted down grade illegally’ to do so, you can add another $121.00 to your bill.

When all is said and done, I still think the illegal campfire is probably the best deal. If you live in Vancouver and feel queasy about picking up dog feces. Just burn it—you could save as much as $1,600.00.

Dumpster Diners

Written sometime in the middle of a July:

It’s another record-breaking hot day in Vancouver. The dumpster below my balcony is cooking up a fetid feast for its regulars. There is constant activity down there—old crumpled guys, young spaced-out kids, well-worn women and even the occasional skunk.

I’ve been watching the regular visitors who come to ‘my’ dumpster for the past few weeks. A few of them jump right in, their landing cushioned by the numerous knotted bags with mushy contents that have recently been tossed by those of us living on the apartment floors above. Some of my regulars are fortunate enough to own a pair of rubber gloves—others aren’t so lucky. They all get in there and start ripping and tearing at the bags we had so neatly and carefully secured. Most of them emerge chewing on something—something that I, or one of my neighbours, had already decided wasn’t fit to eat, or was simply tired of. It makes me worry about which bag I put the used kitty litter into.

Those who don’t come for the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord are looking for goods to trade. One woman emerged with a lovely rattan Ottoman last Tuesday. After some packing and repacking, she managed to stuff it into her buggy and continue on her rounds. Another fellow climbed out waving a floor lamp victoriously over his head. Several people have inspected a metal lantern that was tossed into the garbage a couple of days ago. They look at it carefully, turning it upside down, giving it a good shake and then, for some reason, they put it back. I’ve watched this happen more than half a dozen times. What could be so wrong with it?

There is old chap pushing a ‘borrowed’ Safeway buggy who comes by everyday gathering discarded cans and bottles for his inventory. He always stops to sort making sure pop cans are separate from beer cans and wine bottles are separate from soda bottles. If he finds an item in the wrong plastic bag he becomes agitated. He blames whoever happens to be walking past at the time. He blames God. Sometimes he blames ‘Charlie’, whoever that may be.

His younger colleagues on the street mock him mercilessly. But he gives back as good as he gets. He didn’t last this long by being meek.

Last week I watched another fellow try on a white sweater. He tugged it over his head, adjusted the sleeves, turned down the collar and paraded back and forth as if admiring himself in an imaginary mirror. Apparently, it didn’t pass the test. He took it off, folded it carefully and returned it to the dumpster. I wanted to yell out to him that I thought he looked quite dapper in it, but I kept quiet.

We all keep quiet, don’t we? We’re afraid to engage and yet my balcony is so close to the street that I could hand the foragers table scraps directly and save them the trouble of rummaging through the debris. But I won’t. I’m too close to it all.

In the prevailing economy, perhaps we’re all a little closer than we’d like to think. We’ve all heard tales about former CEOs of large companies falling from their lofty perches and winding up on the streets. Some people land there after a chain of unfortunate events—drinking, gambling, divorce; others do not pass ‘go’, do not collect their two hundred and fall directly from penthouse to pavement trading their worries about income tax, crabgrass and golf swings for concerns most basic. I’ll bet they soon get over the annoying back pain that used to disturb their ‘Posturepedic’ sleeps back in suburbia and that twinge of heartburn that followed a late night brandy.

It’s easier to observe the street if you don’t know the stories behind each character. I’m just pleased to see the regulars going about their daily business on schedule and in an orderly fashion much like they may have done in their previous lives. They have created a purpose for themselves—albeit a somewhat tenuous one. And that’s what most of us are seeking most of the time. We’d just prefer to do it from a second floor balcony rather than beneath one.

Well, gotta go. It’s my turn to take out the garbage.

From Penmanship to Blogmanship

I have spent the better part of this summer in Vancouver attending writing and publishing workshops at Simon Fraser University. It has been a tremendous experience.

I am a mature student (in years, if not behaviour) and I am thoroughly enjoying learning and being taught by engaging and intelligent instructors. Our classes are comprised of a variety of students at all sorts of ages and stages in life. There’s always some who know a bit more than most of us and some who know a bit less. Women outnumber men probably 12 to 1, a fairly accurate reflection of the publishing industry in general.

I have been involved with print media for over a quarter of a century. I distinctly remember the pungent aroma and wetness of galleys fresh from the typesetting machine, and the cloying odour of contact cement, particularly on a hot day. With surgical precision, I could splice a single 9 pt letter into a misspelled word if necessary. I could roll out a half point ‘lettraset’ border with perfectly mitred corners to contain a column of text or photograph. I knew my way around a dark room—cranking out PMT headings, graphics and halftones.

I’ve come a long way since then. Like most people, I can now sit at home in my PJs if I want to, typesetting to my heart’s content, clicking and sizing borders at the touch of a button and dropping in photographs and graphics instantly on my laptop computer. Publishing is no longer a smelly job.

I have had my own website for many years. I regard it as larger-than-life business card and portable portfolio with infinitely more potential to inform and engage a potential client or patron .

Up until this month at SFU, however, I had not considered ‘blogging’. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what it was and why anyone would want to bother with it. I am not from the generation that comfortably reads screens and communicates with thumbs tapping franticly on miniature keyboards. I am unlikely to kick a good book out of my bed and cuddle up with a ‘Kindle’. My extensive collection of long playing records is not going to be reduced to an electronic play list that fits in the palm of my hand. Mind you, I am proud to announce that my VCR has gone the way of the obsolete 8-track tape player and I can now watch DVDs—all this within the first decade of the 21^st century!

We, of the bifocal set, are no longer the trendsetters. If we want to participate in the marketplace as fully functional and accessible business people, we have to keep up with the new generation of movers and shakers.

That said, however, I have a few concerns about this new and slightly obsessive age of instant communication:

With so much ‘blogging, ‘twittering’, and ‘chatting’, how do people have time to eat, sleep and have sex? Days, nights, commutes, vacations, mealtimes and even bathroom breaks are spent rattling off messages and checking to see if anyone has responded. Is all this electronic verbosity simply filling cyberspace with self-indulgent pulp?

Why do strangers sharing an elevator travel all the way to the 17^th floor without saying a word to one another and yet, when they arrive at the 17^th floor and settle down at their computers, they are suddenly compelled to blog and blab to the far corners of the world?

Whether I ‘get it’ or not, I feel the pressure to get on with it. During my month at SFU it became clear that a writer in today’s marketplace without a blog is like an artist without a portfolio. A blog is often the first place a publisher will go to look at a prospective writer’s work.

Therefore, I must blog (verb); have a blog (noun); develop blog-worthy (adjective) copy; and write bloggedly (adverb?).

I shall do my best to live up to the responsibilities of blogmanship, but I’ll need your help. If you are one of those people who, like me, is only just beginning to sneak the word ‘blog’ into conversation having finally discovered what it actually means, please drop me a line … before we get to the 17^th floor.