Guns and knives will come at the end of the post. As I get older, it helps to write things down in chronological order.
Monday 5 September was a public holiday here in Canada. The previous Thursday I went with my son to his property in Sudbury 500km (300 miles) north, we stayed in his caravan (trailer) and spent three days cutting down a couple of big pine trees. Then we cut them into manageable logs, hauled them back to the sawmill and cut them into building lumber. Apart from a little rain one afternoon and one cool morning, the weather was very pleasant. This late in the summer, the insects had gone.
There is no cell phone coverage although he does have a satellite internet connection so we could contact our homes. It was a nice break from my usual weekday routine of computers and phones.
We enjoyed a couple of beers and a good chat on the first evening watching the sunset. I enjoyed the chance to talk without distractions. We both have busy lives, we haven’t spent a few days together since a similar trip last year in November. It reminded me of staying in a caravan 44 years ago on our first night in South Africa when my son was a small boy. I wrote about it here.
It was three days of hard physical work, he drove the tractor and I walked to and fro hitching chains. We both used chainsaws to trim branches and cut the trees into 12 or 16ft logs (3.5 or 5m). It’s rough, rocky terrain which makes moving big logs with a small tractor quite interesting. Moving the logs onto the sawmill bed took some careful maneuvering.
I was relieved that despite being 72, I had no problem keeping up with my 47-year-old son, but I do that sort of work almost every Saturday and Sunday on my own, cutting, carting, splitting and stacking wood to heat our house during winter. I am grateful that I can do it and believe it’s from having lived a very active life.
We left early Monday morning to get ahead of the traffic for the drive home. Even so, the roads were busy with more caravans, trailers, boats and motorhomes than I have ever seen.
Live Interview
On Wednesday 7 September, I was a guest on fakeologist.com. The show owner, Ab Irato had read my story after interviewing author John. C. A. Manley who had been a guest on our The Yakking Show a few weeks earlier. John had talked about his book “Much Ado About Corona” – I have read it, it’s a great story about love, doing what’s right, and government overreach.
Ab had been interested in Southern African history since questioning the conventional narrative back in the 1980s. He is an engaging interviewer, one who is genuinely interested in his guests’ opinions. Ab had said that we would talk for an hour, that stretched to two hours by the time we finished. We talked about the (often unpublicised) history of South Africa and Rhodesia. That of the latter unfolding over a similar period to that of much of Ontario and the Western provinces of Canada. You can listen to the episode here.
Guns and Knives
The interesting week ended with the opportunity to fire a few rounds from two calibres of pistols and a rifle with a gun owner I recently met. I had carried my 9mm pistol on my belt for many years in South Africa and Zimbabwe and had lived with guns close at hand for most of my life in Africa. With the uncertainty of where I would live and the restrictions on gun ownership here, I did not bring my guns to Canada.
Handling and firing a pistol for the first time in almost 20 years felt as comfortable and familiar as it always had. The safety disciplines that were drummed into me by an ex-military father and enthusiastic army instructors were still second nature after more than 50 years. Sadly, my accuracy had not stayed at the same level. However, it was reassuring to know that I was still good enough to hit a coyote-size target at 25 metres. As a way of keeping my eye in, I bought an air rifle a few years ago and occasional practice with it showed up in a decent score with the rifle.
The knives reference in the title is a sad observation about the tragic mass stabbing in Saskatchewan last week. Had one or two of the victims or others in the vicinity carried guns and been trained to use them, many lives would almost certainly have been saved. Having grown up in an environment that saw guns as necessary tools and not instruments of evil, I am appalled that Canadians are not permitted to defend themselves with guns and knives or any weapon.
P.S.
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Gun Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay Knife Image by Sinisa Maric from Pixabay