DISASTERS, WAR AND A MUSKOKA VACATION

I feel guilty as hell, you know, being a trigger-happy blogger (most of the time) and all, to have taken a writer’s hiatus for the past week, to enjoy a wonderful March Break vacation at home....here in beautiful Muskoka. While many drove, flew and traversed from here to there, for the week’s holiday, Suzanne and I enjoyed a quiet time, by hearthside at Birch Hollow, went antique hunting daily, took two trips south, to antique shops in Orillia and Barrie (business and pleasure), and made it to Bracebridge and Huntsville.....where we enjoyed pleasant strolls and profitable shopping. We’d grab some ice cream treats and sit in the family truckster, at lakeside, and watch the spring settle over the hinterland. We’ve done this for decades and have always found Muskoka to be a worthy host, when we’re in a tourist-way-of-thinking mode.....and a grand place to live when we finally arrive home here to Birch Hollow, overlooking The Bog....full to overflowing with wildlife.....which has long been a stress-release tonic for the work-weary.

I have had the urge, many times this past week, to sit down here and pound out a blog, or a dozen, about the dangers of uranium and plutonium use in earthquake prone areas of the planet, building cities on fault-lines of the earth’s crust, and the reasons why ruthless dictators should be forcibly removed. It has as much been a week of news watching and a certain amount of silence.....contemplating what it must have been like to watch home and family washed out to sea, in Japan, and then finding out that damage to a nuclear facility has destined your community, the nation, to a perpetual, boundless tragedy. It’s hard to be sitting here, in the safe haven of Birch Hollow, and Gravenhurst, and write in any meaningful way, about such enormous human suffering somewhere else. I have no right to do this. And as I was ecstatic initially, that the Libyan freedom movement was going to be supported by international air-power, the suffering on all sides of the nation in crisis, was well beyond any word-smithing, this “out-of-the-action” hack could responsibly represent. Volatility just can’t be appreciated while watching the birds and squirrel at the feeder, outside my window.........or enjoying the sight of wild turkeys pecking at the dried grasses over in the lowland.

If anything I garnered from a week of watching and learning, it’s to once again harp on the issues of global calamities, and their massive imprint on all of us......that there is no escaping, by ignorance or indifference, to the prevailing catastrophes being experienced by our international neighbors. When we give a sigh of relief, about being well away from the main action and crisis erupting, it is a false sense of security. Whether it is with the knowledge we have friends and associates living and travelling in these locations, or experiencing the financial discomfort of higher fuel and grocery prices, the days of being miles and miles out of harm’s way, isn’t any guarantee we won’t feel the pain and suffering of others, a half a world away or not.

I’m not worthy to write about the terrible circumstances happening in Japan and Libya, at this moment, because it requires actuality......of being there.

I hope the Mayor of this town has a group of advisors, who will provide that clear picture of how fast and deadly circumstance can change, such that the clear, settling calm of just another day, can be turned, in an instant, to an epic disaster without precedent. Disaster planning isn’t just a feel-good document, that we can confidently retort, when asked by some pesky reporter..... “Why yes, we have one of those.....somewhere!” After seeing the less than stellar response to the earthquake, by those specially trained to handle these emergencies in Japan, I’d be far more comfortable in this region, knowing the disaster plan is being dusted-off occasionally, and well......read by all those in charge of our municipality and region. After an emergency has occurred, is a crappy time to play catch-up.

One day the Mayor may be asked to perform “the extraordinary” as a responsibility of wearing the chain of office. It’s possibly the most under known of expectations of locally elected office. This is when leadership faces its most extreme test, and our Mayor and council should ponder, what it would have been like, as elected representatives in Japan, to have such a devastating situation develop in their ballywick that may have claimed members of their own family......yet having to work through the carnage, to help save the lives of others. Decision making to save the taxpayers money, and leading the population out of harm’s way, during an emergency, are miles apart in function yet all part of a potential day’s work.

Emergency planning doesn’t get the attention it deserves because we, as humans, like the trappings of complacency. Just as now, I am looking out on such a gentle, inspiring landscape, and feeling happy about my place on this planet. What would happen if this pleasant surroundings I presently enjoy, was torn apart, the landscape opened up with a jagged fault line to the horizon, and a mudslide was tearing away the property I love so dearly? Then I’d be too scared to write!

Disasters don’t feel obliged to schedule their intrusion, to make it convenient for the population.